|  | Norway's Expatriate Parliament - Several Models | By Jon Gunnar Arntzen, member of the Advisory Council of the Norse Federation |
Among the proposals discussed at last year's annual meeting of the Norse Federation was the idea of establishing a "parliament” in which expatriate Norwegians and persons of Norwegian descent could hold discussions and make recommendations to the Norwegian government. This idea has been examined in the organization's membership magazine Hjemme og Ute, and is outlined (along with a proposed set of bylaws) on the Federation's website. Members are invited to share their views about the idea generally, as well as about the proposed bylaws.
The idea of providing an opportunity for expatriate Norwegians to meet regularly is not original. It was inspired by the experiences of other countries, including Finland, France and Switzerland. It may be useful to take a closer look at the experiences of these countries, as well as to examine the cases of Denmark and Sweden, whose expatriate citizens employ other methods to bring their viewpoints to the attention of government officials.
| Switzerland | Switzerland's Die Auslandschweizer-Organisation (ASO) is comparable to the Norse Federation and has existed since 1916. The question of regular meetings was brought up long ago: the first conference for expatriate Swiss was held in Basel in 1918. A permanent organ, Der Auslandschweizerrat (ASR), whose membership numbers between 91 and 113, currently meets twice a year in Switzerland for day-long meetings. Of the members, who are appointed for four years at a time, at least three-fifths are chosen by and from the various organizations for expatriate Swiss that belong to ASO, while at least one-third must reside in Switzerland. The latter are selected by the council itself from a pool of candidates representing various branches of Swiss business, society, and cultural life.
ASR, often referred to as "the fifth Swiss parliament” (the name alludes to the four official language/ethnic groups in Switzerland - German, French, Italian and Rheto-Romansh), has had a direct influence on a number of political decisions that affect the lives of Swiss expatriates. These include the recognition of this group's rights in the Swiss constitution, the introduction of absentee voting by mail for expatriates, and voluntary membership in the government social insurance programs for Swiss expatriates.
|  The debates in ASR are based on proposals and reports that may be presented by the members themselves or by Swiss authorities. These debates often result in decisions to make recommendations to politicians. At the council's latest meeting, in August 2006, it was decided to support a single system of electronic voting for both Swiss expatriates and citizens residing in Switzerland. The council also supported (by a vote of 70 to 2) a government resolution to give the ten new EU-member countries a total of one billion Swiss francs.
ASR has also strongly opposed the proposal to end the system of dual citizenship. The council wishes to improve its formal status in relation to the Swiss legislative process, and it encourages all Swiss expatriates who are interested in politics and who are eligible to be elected to become candidates in national and local elections in Switzerland.
The umbrella organization ASO, which encompasses more than 750 member groups around the world, has ? partly on its own, and partly with private and public support - helped fund Swiss schools abroad, subsidized study visits in Switzerland for Swiss expatriates, and established a solidarity fund to supplement government insurance systems. ASO and ASR have a website www.aso.ch that provides information about how expatriates can take advantage of their voting rights at home. The site also contains an electronic version of ASO's magazine Schweizer Revue (which is comparable to The Norseman and Hjemme og Ute), which is published six times a year in German, French, Italian, English, and Spanish and has a total circulation of 380,000.
| France | Because France, in contrast to the other lands under consideration here, has a long history as a major colonial power, it also has a long expatriate tradition that involves more than ordinary emigration. France has therefore developed a number of ways to safeguard the interests of French expatriates. These include direct representation in the French national assembly for those residing in the so- called "overseas territories,” that is, in areas that are formally a part of France, even though they may be located on the opposite side of the globe. Persons living in French Polynesia or on the Caribbean islands Martinique and Guadeloupe have the same rights as other French citizens to vote in both local and national elections (including presidential elections).
But there are approximately 2 million Frenchmen or persons of French descent living in other areas as well, and they too are guaranteed permanent representation. Beginning in1946 the French Senate included a number of members (first three, then 12) who represented French expatriates in Europe, Asia, and North America; beginning in 1948, expatriate interests were also under the purview of a separate assembly called the Conseil supérieur des Francais de l'étranger (CSFE).
Expatriate participation in elections gradually declined, however, and in an attempt to reverse this development, the postwar strategems were replaced, as of 2004, by a new institution called L'Assemblée des Francais de l'étranger (AFE), whose 153 members are directly elected for a term of six years. AFE is headed by a group made up of the French foreign minister, three vice presidents elected from the members of the assembly, and 12 senators and 16 additional members appointed by the foreign minister.
Among the AFE's responsibilities is to elect the expatriate senators. It also has representatives at a number of French government agencies, and advises both the government and the National Assembly, either by bringing up matters on its own initiative or by reporting the results of hearings and the like. AFE meets twice a year. A detailed account of AFE and its responsibilities is available on the assembly's website www.assemblee-afe.fr.
| Finland | Emigrants from Finland have formed local organizations similar to those formed by Norwegian emigrants. Today there are more than 500 such groups outside of Finland's borders. The Finnish counterpart to the Norse Federation is the Finland Society (Suomi-Seura), which was established in 1927 and has individual members and local chapters in 27 countries. It publishes a magazine, Suomen Silta (Finland's Bridge), with six issues a year in Finnish plus supple- ments in Swedish, English, and German. A weekly Finnish language news summary can be received by mail or accessed at the Finland Society website www.suomi-seura.fi.
|  Utlandsfinländarparlamentet (UFP) - the Finnish Expatriate Parliament (FEP) - was founded in 1997 and is open to all Finnish expatriate organizations. There are currently 434 member organizations in 34 countries that have the right to send representatives to the Parliament's meetings, which take place every 2 or 3 years. The FEP is led by a presidium whose members represent 8 world regions and expatriate "Finland-Swedes.” The chairman of the Finland Society serves as Speaker of the Parliament, and the Finland Society functions as FEP's permanent secretariat.
The FEP serves an advisory role in relation to the Finnish government. Among the issues it has focused on is dual citizenship, which has been permitted in Finland since 2003. Parliamentary discussions, which take place both in plenary sessions and within standing committees (of which there are currently 9), are the result of member organizations' recommendations and proposals. At FEP?s latest session, in 2005, more than 100 different proposals were dealt with and 70 resolutions and statements accepted.
More details about the FEP can be found at its Swedish-language website . The observant reader will note that the proposed bylaws for a proposed Norwegian Expatriate Parliament are based largely on the FEP's bylaws. Having briefly examined these three examples of formalized contact between a country's government and its expatriate citizens, we shall now look at two countries that have chosen other ways to maintain this contact.
| Denmark | The Norse Federation's sister organization in Denmark, Danes Worldwide, was founded in 1919 under the name Foreningen Dansk Samvirke. As of 2006, it had 4,650 members in 141 countries. Contact between members at home and abroad is maintained through local representatives that are now found in 56 different countries. There has been a decline in membership over the last several years.
|  Danes Worldwide operates the Danish Summer School, which holds classes over a three-week period for students from 9 to 18 at three separate locations in Denmark, as well as a program, Danes Worldwide Education, that in 2006 was providing instruction to 350 Danish students in more than 40 countries. The member magazine Danmarksposten is published 8 times a year and can also be read on Danes Worldwide's website www.danesworldwide.dk. Members can address questions to a panel of experts and participate in discussions concerning matters of interest to expatriate Danes.
|  Among the major issues of concern to Danes Worldwide are questions regarding the rights of expatriate citizens, such as eligibility to vote, dual citizenship, and rules regarding family reunification in which one spouse is a Danish citizen. The organization has also provided support to a housing project for returned expatriate Danes, the so-called Fredensborghusene (Fredensborg houses). In recent years, the organization has also carried out an extensive survey in which expatriate Danes have been asked how strong a connection they feel to Denmark.
Each summer, Danes Worldwide holds the so-called Kronborgmøde (Kronborg meeting), which takes place at the historical Kronborg Castle at Øresund and draws participants from around the world. The first meeting was held in 1935, and the annual meetings (which are routinely attended by representatives of the royal family, the government, and various public institutions) are day-long celebrations of "Danishness” which feature keynote speeches, the playing of shepherd's horns, and a buffet. It is, then, not quite an expatriate parliament, but perhaps just as pleasant.
A relatively new initiative aimed at expatriate Danes is the independent net portal Danes Abroad , which was founded in 2003 and at present (2007) draws more than 30,000 unique visitors each month. The portal provides news from Denmark, contact information for Danish businesses and institutions, discussion groups, and job listings. It also offers free web pages to Danish organizations and institutions abroad. Approximately 20 organizations have taken advantage of this offer.
Hence, though there is no direct, formalized channel for contact between expatriate Danes and the Danish government, expatriate Danes can influence developments in Denmark in other ways.
| Sweden | Föreningen Svenskar i Världen (SVIV) was founded in 1938 as Utlandssven- skarnas förening. (The present name dates from 1988.) The organization was originally based on individual membership, but since 2000 local groups of expatriate Swedes can also join. Thanks to this policy change, the SVIV, which had approximately 3,500 members at the close of the 1990s, now boasts about 40,000 individual members in several hundred organizations. There is also a separate group of corporate members, who work for 70 or so large Swedish businesses, plus a network of more than 90 local representatives, who function as contacts between individual members or, member organizations and the SVIV headquarters, and who are also responsible for recruiting new members.
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In addition, the SVIV publishes a magazine, Svenskar i världen (Swedes in the World), which comes out four times a year. The magazine is available on the organizations website www.sviv.se, which also features discussion groups and links to the many Swedish clubs and organizations outside of Sweden. The local representatives and other interested members meet each year at the annual meeting/representative meeting in Sweden, which is often followed by seminars on issues of interest. The SVIV has been actively engaged in a number of juridical and economic matters affecting expatriate Swedes, including the question of dual citizenship (established in Sweden in 2001), expatriate Swedes' voting rights, and taxation and social insurance questions. The organization is now working to make it possible for expatriates to be represented by their own member of the Swedish parliament. A major conference is held each year at which the focus is on a specific country in which many expatriate Swedes reside. The SVIV also provides stipends, offers counseling, holds summer courses for young people at the Grännaskolan (Gränna School) at Vättern, and awards the annual Swede of the Year prize, whose recipients have included IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, author Astrid Lindgren, and ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
Then there is the website www.utlandssvenskar.com, which was established in 2004 by expatriates Patrick Brodin and Lasse Wilhelmsson, and which has become "the obvious meeting place and information center for all Swedes located abroad.” With about 3,800 registered members in 125 countries, it provides Swedish news, useful information for expatriates, member discounts, employment and housing information, discussion groups, and more. All services are free of charge for members.
Like their Danish counterparts, then, Swedish expatriates do not have an esta- blished means of communication with their government. Still, the SVIV has managed to be an effective representative for them and to persuade political leaders, in many instances, to address its concerns.
The examples above are interesting in and of themselves, and together can provide a helpful foundation for the Norse Federation's centennial-year discussions.
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| | Expatriate parliaments
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