The Norwegian spring is chock-full of public holidays. There's Easter, Labor Day, Constitution day, etc., and with the curious tendency of these to fall on Tuesday's and Thursday's, and an ever increasing number of vacation days, spring is the season of long weekends. One of these holidays, Easter - and Easter Thursday in particular - has become the unofficial national border trade holiday, partly because Norwegian stores are closed, partly because Easter is very long, and mostly because Sweden is cheap. Thousands of people take the opportunity to cross the border, fill their cars with quite a lot more than the legal limits of cheap meat and alcohol at markets especially aimed at Norwegians, and sneak back home hoping they don't get caught. Border trade with Sweden is strong all year around, but particularly at Easter.

A new term has been coined for this phenomenon, these thousands of cars queueing up at the borders to save a bit of money: the Harry Trade. The "Harry", you will recall, is the enemy of refined taste and good manners, and it was the Minister of Agriculture, Lars Sponheim, who infamously applied it to border traders. Insulting angry voters did, as you would expect, not have the intended effect - quite the opposite. Border trade to Sweden this year is up 14% from 2002, and may reach $1.5 billion by the end of the year.

There's more to this than money. A new report confirms that Harry traders are at least partly politically motivated. It's their way of protesting against the insane Norwegian food taxes. Fully half of the Harry's, for instance, vote Progress Party, (originally known as the Anders Lange Party for a Strong Reduction in Taxes, Duties and Public Intervention.)

Researcher Oddveig Storstad warns against dismissing the political importance of these signs of discontent, and she's right. A large segment of the population - including, for instance, almost everyone who enjoys alcohol regularly - are royally pissed off with the government's patronizing tax policies, and the refusal of the traditional parties to pick up these sentiments have caused a lot of resentment, now being fueled into support for the Progress Party. And with alcohol prices expected to fall even further in Denmark and Sweden this year, the government would be not only wrong but foolish not to follow this up with cuts of their own.

I was a bit puzzled by this report and its interpretation, and I don't think it managed to justify its concludion that border trade is a form of political protest. It may just as well be that those who tend to cross the border to shop in Sweden, do so exclusively to save money. The prices are half of the Norwegian, after all. Then, they are consistent by also voting for the party that promises the most extensive tax cuts.

I don't think it is necessary to invoke the idea that people travel to Sweden as some sort of political demonstration. People have always voted with their wallets. Nothing shows what people really mean as much as where they are willing to put their money.

Perhaps. I didn't find the report online, so it could be that the headlines got a bit carried away. But it sounds plausible to me that the ones who travel most are also the ones who are least satisfied with our tax policies. If someone believes that the taxes are justified, isn't it a bit hypocritical to shop in Sweden?

Sweden is cheap? I suppose it's all about comparisons, but sheesh... from here it really looks like someone has been out picking the wild mushrooms!

Joe: Cheapness is relative. Norwegians shop in Sweden, Swedes in Denmark, Danes in Germany. But we buy a lot more than they do.

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