Last October, Jens Stoltenberg stepped down as NATO secretary general 10 years after his appointment. He was widely expected to move quickly to a new top international job. But, last month, he returned to Norwegian politics and took on the role of finance minister in the cabinet reshuffle that followed the government’s two-party coalition’s collapse.
Now that Stoltenberg is back, the Labour Party is ruling alone for the first time in 25 years and gaining momentum.
The Norwegian political landscape has been turned upside-down, according to Peter Egge Langsæther, a political scientist at the University of Oslo.
“After 3.5 years, the unpopular Labour and rural Centre party government broke down. The Social Democrats continued alone and are now enjoying a massive and sudden boost in popularity,” he says.
This shift, Langsæther adds, is due in no small part to Stoltenberg’s decision to join prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s government.
Before entering the international political scene, the 65-year-old Stoltenberg led the Labour party for more than a decade. He also served as finance minister in the 1990s, and twice as prime minister between 2000 and 2001, and again from 2005 to 2013.
As NATO chief, he earned the moniker “Trump whisperer” for convincing the US president not to withdraw from the transatlantic military alliance. He also welcomed Sweden and Finland as its new members following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Stoltenberg is considered a returning hero, Langsæther observes. And the Euroskeptics gathered around the Center Party are suddenly in trouble.
“They enjoyed a large lead in the polls for years, and their victory in the upcoming September election seemed certain until recently, but right now their electoral prospects are uncertain,” Langsæther says. Whether the Labour government can retain its popularity remains to be seen. Much like other countries, Norway faces a complex set of domestic and international challenges. As Langsæther puts it: “The government will have to successfully navigate foreign policy challenges, mainly concerning relations with the EU and the new American administration, as well as support for Ukraine, while also handling internal conflicts related to the economy and electricity policies.”
