Norway Names Ex-NATO Chief as New Finance Minister

(Bloomberg) -- Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was named Norway’s new finance minister, taking on the role as Europe prepares for a global trade upheaval that will test transatlantic relations.

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Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store presented a new administration Tuesday after his ruling coalition collapsed last week amid a dispute over whether to adopt the European Union’s energy market rules. Norway, which isn’t part of the EU, is Europe’s largest energy exporter.

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Stoltenberg, 65, stepped down from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last October after a 10-year term. He was known to have good relations with Donald Trump and managed to navigate relations with the US president in the face of his threats to leave the military alliance.

“As with other ministers, we saw Jens as a key person in the situation where a trade conflict between the US and the EU could quickly affect Norway,” Store told reporters on Tuesday. “We need to manage the Norwegian economy especially when things get tough in the international economic climate.”

Stoltenberg, an economist by training, was the Nordic country’s prime minister twice and previously held the finance minister’s portfolio. The former head of the ruling Labor party is also a personal friend of Store.

“I am deeply honored to have been asked to help my country at this critical stage,” Stoltenberg said in a Tuesday statement.

Norway’s two-party minority government collapsed last week after the Labor and the euro-skeptic Center party couldn’t agree on the implementation of the EU’s energy rules. Labor will govern on its own until the Sept. 8 election.

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Norway has access to the single market through the European Economic Area agreement despite remaining outside of the EU. It is a vital energy supplier to the bloc and the UK, a role that has grown as Russia’s flows to Europe have been slashed following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Nordic country had a 42% share of the EU’s natural gas imports in the third quarter and also supplied about 14% of the bloc’s petroleum imports.

Stoltenberg’s surprise return to Norwegian politics caused excitement and optimism within his Labor party with seven months until the next parliamentary election.

Labor’s popularity has been steadily sliding amid a string of ethics scandals, tax hikes that have triggered an outflow of the rich and fallout from a cost-of-living spike in the past years. The average of national polls in January compiled by pollofpolls.no indicates the party is still clearly trailing the two main opposition parties, the Progress Party and the Conservatives.

Stoltenberg had been named the new co-chair of the Bilderberg Group shortly after leaving NATO. He was also picked to head the Munich Security Conference, and said in a statement that he will return once he leaves public service.

Store also named Tore O. Sandvik, 55, to be Norway’s defense minister and Astri Aas-Hansen, 54, justice minister.

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(Updates with Store comment in the fourth paragraph.)

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