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Jens Stoltenberg has rejected accusations that Norway was a “war profiteer” for selling record quantities of oil and gas to Europe after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The former Nato secretary-general who took over as Norwegian finance minister earlier this week told the Financial Times that he disagreed with academics and media suggesting his country had made huge profits since 2022 and insisted Oslo provided essential alternative energy supplies for Europe in a time of crisis.
“European countries recognised the importance of Norwegian gas to mitigate the consequences of the cut-off of Russian gas,” he said.
Norwegian gas now represented about 30 per cent of the bloc’s supplies, he said, while prior to the war the EU had imported 40 per cent of its gas from Russia. Norway is also a large oil exporter with close to 90 per cent going to the EU.
Stoltenberg also stressed Oslo had increased military support to Ukraine and was ready to do more.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has sparked an intense debate in Norway about whether western Europe’s largest petroleum producer needs to get closer to the EU to avoid any fallout from a potential trade war. The concerns were amplified by the US president’s refusal to rule out military and economic action against neighbouring Denmark to give up its control of Greenland.
Stoltenberg, known as “the Trump whisperer” from his time at Nato, said Norway would first of all “do what we can to prevent a trade war between the US and Europe”.
But if tariffs were introduced, Norway would “work with the EU to find ways to not end up in between the two trading blocs”, he added.
He said his country remained committed to strong links with the EU after the previous coalition government collapsed over an attempt to force through the bloc’s energy rules. Norway, which is a member of Nato but not of the EU, adopts most of the laws agreed in Brussels as part of its membership of the European Economic Area.
“It’s hard to imagine a stronger message of commitment to the European Union than what we’ve seen over the last days, where we were actually ready to take that consequence,” he said.
The Norwegian Labour party is now running a minority government in Oslo, after its Eurosceptic pro-farmer Centre party left the coalition over a dispute related to the implementation of EU clean energy rules.
Stoltenberg led Labour for more than a decade and was prime minister for nine years before becoming Nato chief. His return to Norwegian politics has electrified the campaign ahead of September’s parliamentary elections, catapulting his Labour party from third place to first in an opinion poll on Thursday.
But Norway still faces serious questions about its relationship with Brussels as Jonas Gahr Støre, the current prime minister and close friend of Stoltenberg, said he would not implement other EU energy rules or allow any new electricity interconnectors.
Norway’s reluctance to renew two interconnectors to Denmark, due to expire next year, and some parties calling into question other energy links ahead of parliamentary elections in September have soured relations with the EU despite the increased gas sales.
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