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Jens Stoltenberg appointed Norway's new Finance Minister -UPDATED

Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

04 February 2025 14:30 (UTC +04:00)

Ex-NATO chief and former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has become the country's new finance minister, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said while announcing the composition of the new government, APA reports.

Store was forced to reshuffle the government after the collapse of the ruling coalition. Last week, the Center Party, led by former Finance Minister Trygve Vedum, announced the end of its cooperation with the Labor Party. The reason for the collapse of the ruling coalition was the Center Party's non-alignment with the allies' energy policy and their plans for rapprochement with the EU, of which Norway is not a member.

***12:45

Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was set to become Norway's new finance minister on Tuesday as part of a cabinet reshuffle, Reuters reported citing Norwegian media, APA reports.

Stoltenberg, a Labour Party veteran politician, was prime minister of Norway in 2000-2001 and 2005-2013. He headed the Western military alliance for a decade, including during U.S. President Donald Trump's first term, stepping down last year.

The 65-year-old is an economist by training and was finance minister in 1996-1997. He is widely seen as a pragmatist centrist.

At NATO, Stoltenberg was dubbed the "Trump-whisperer" for convincing Donald Trump to stick with the alliance after the U.S. president complained during his first term that allies were spending too little on defence and threatened to pull out.

Norway's eurosceptic Centre Party quit the government on Thursday in a dispute over the adoption of European Union energy policies, leaving the centre-left Labour to rule alone, eight months before an election.

During his first stint as PM, Stoltenberg set up the so-called spending rule, a self-imposed rule that says that Norwegian governments should not use more than 4% of the total value of the sovereign wealth fund for national budgets.

That rule has since then been reduced to 3% as the fund has grown in value.