Regions of Norway may suffer economically as a result of towering sanctions against Russia, shipyards, trade unions and local politicians have warned.
Among other regions, hundreds of jobs could disappear in northern Norway, a part of the country with strong ties to Russia.
“We are 100 percent behind the sanctions against Russia, but if it affects customers, banks, and suppliers; it will paralyse us,” Rainer Ingebrigtsen of The United Federation of Trade Unions, the country's largest trade union organising the private sector with 160,000 members, told the newspaper Fri Fagbevegelse.
Among others the Kirkenes shipyard gets up to 80 percent of its income from the maintenance and refurbishment of Russian boats.
“We have never had problems with Russian customers paying, but with sanctions against Russian banks, we will not get paid. Then we can not take on jobs either”, Ingebrigtsen emphasised.
To alleviate the pain, Ingebrigtsen called for an aid package similar to the one that the business community received in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lena Norum Bergeng, mayor in the Sør-Varanger municipality that borders on Russia, says her municipality could lose at least 200 jobs and NOK 35 million (nearly 4 million) in tax revenue annually due to the sanctions.
She also emphasised that she expects Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum and Trade and Industry Minister Jan Christian Vestre to put forward a “package for change”.
“If not, there are dark skies ahead for many companies here,” she said.
The LO Trade Union warned that the ripple effects of the sanctions will last for a long time and fear people may choose to leave Sør-Varanger if they are laid off.
Following the start of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, aimed to demilitarise the country and protect the People's Republics of Donbass, the West unleashed an unprecedented wave of sanctions against Moscow, targeting all spheres of life from the military industry and electronics to banking and consumer goods.
According to the sanctions tracker Castellum.ai, the nearly 2,800 restrictions imposed on Russia by the West led to a grand total of over 5,500 sanctions, making Russia the most-heavily sanctioned country in the world and placing it far above Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela.