Norwegians don’t queue, grumble Swedes: press poll

STOCKHOLM: In a show of neighborly discord, a majority of Swedes polled by a tabloid Thursday said they thought Norwegians were poor at queueing amid a host of other gripes.
Of the more than 3,800 people who responded to the question “Are Norwegians bad at queuing?” on the Expressen web site, 59 percent said “yes, very,” while only eight percent answered “no, they excel at it.”
The poll comes after a sociological study on Swedish border residents found Swedes to be increasingly annoyed with their wealthier neighbors.
“It’s surprising how many negative things” Swedes have to say about Norwegians, the author of the study, Eva Olsson, told the Swedish press agency TT.
Swedes were once accustomed to saving pennies by buying their butter and cream across the border, but the tables have since turned, with Norway growing richer thanks to its oil and gas exports.
Swedes now feel flooded by Norwegians, Olsson said in an interview on Swedish public radio. She said she worried the antagonism in border areas would degenerate into a social crisis.
Poor queue etiquette aside, the Swedes also have other bones to pick with their neighbors.
They claim Norwegians “don’t know how to drive at roundabouts, they park in handicapped areas... are immoral and buy lots of tobacco and alcohol,” according to accounts from the study, quoted by Expressen.
In 2011, Norwegians spent 11.5 billion Norwegian kroner (1.6 billion euros, $1.9 billion) in Sweden in 2011, according to Swedish official data.
“We’d be poor were it not for the Norwegians,” press agency TT said.