The article examines how the tax case from 1996, the Oslo Process, and subsequent network connections collectively have affected trust in the power elite.
843,000 kroner, 39 days and 50,000 kroner in fines
An ordinary taxpayer who is reassessed for several hundred thousand kroner encounters an apparatus that goes straight for the throat. Demands are sent. Interest accrues. Surtax (tilleggsskatt) is imposed when the conditions are met. There is no buffer, no pause button, no social capital that softens the outcome. You pay, or you have the problem escalated.
In 1996, Terje Rød-Larsen stands at the centre of a case in which the figures are presented publicly with full name and full weight. The tax authorities (ligningsmyndighetene) must decide whether his tax assessment (ligningen) is to be reopened before the ten-year limitation period expires at the turn of the year. 39 days remain before the case can be legally dead. Economist Eirik Reppen reviews the documentation on nationwide television. Share gain in Fideco of 600,000 kroner. The question is whether the gain should have been taxed as employment income. If the answer is yes, it means nearly 400,000 kroner paid too little. After nine years with interest and surtax, the claim may amount to 843,000 kroner. Even with the removal of surtax, the amount is estimated at well over 700,000. These are figures, not moods.
It is stated at the same time that the Directorate of Taxes (Skattedirektoratet) has known of the matter since the end of the 1980s. The information has lain in the system for years. The deadline is known. The public has been notified. The tax office (ligningskontoret) must take a position before the case becomes time-barred. The entire situation is a test of the State’s will to enforce the same standard when it concerns a person at the centre of power.
The outcome is a fine of 50,000 kroner.
From a possible reassessment of over 800,000 kroner to 50,000. That discrepancy is not cosmetic. It changes the entire reality. For an ordinary citizen, such a claim can crush the economy, eliminate housing, create long-term debt, destroy room for manoeuvre. Here it ends in a reaction that appears small, set against what was presented as possible reality. The case is pressed towards limitation. The authorities have had knowledge for years. The reaction is mild. The signal becomes clear: Consequences strike differently depending on position.
The context surrounding Fideco makes the picture even uglier. Fideco was closely linked to LO, Fafo and county municipal (fylkeskommunale) environments. Around 80 million kroner were lost. Local investors bore the losses. Public funds were part of the structure. The network around the company was dense and overlapped with political power. When a central actor in such an environment stands in a tax case involving large sums, and the case ends with a limited fine after years of publicly known information, it raises a wholly fundamental question about shielding and standard.
This concerns a culture of responsibility. When you sit in a position of power and live off public trust, the standard shall be strict. Here people see a possible reassessment of over 800,000 kroner that shrinks to 50,000. People see a deadline that almost runs out. People see a system that has known for a long time. People see an outcome that does not match the seriousness of the figures. Then the career continues: government office, top international positions, institutions financed by state funds, global prestige.
For me, this is the core: The difference between potential consequence and actual reaction creates a breach of trust. An ordinary citizen has no political capital to draw upon. An ordinary citizen has no access to the networks of power. An ordinary citizen cannot lean on a system that absorbs risk. When power meets mildness, where others meet harshness, the foundation of equal treatment is undermined. This is a window into how power protects itself.
The Oslo Process as strategic failure
The Oslo Process was presented as a diplomatic breakthrough. In reality it was a high-risk experiment carried out by a small Norwegian power milieu that played geopolitical great power with others’ security as the stake. Norway assumed the role of architect for a new order in the Middle East. Secret meetings. Solemn signing on the lawn in Washington. International applause. The image of Norway as a peace nation was chiselled in. Terje Rød-Larsen and the circle around him were lifted forward as historic bridge-builders.
What was actually built was a construction based on political optimism in a conflict area characterised by armed rivalry, deep ideological antagonisms and absence of consolidated control over the monopoly of force.
Territorial and administrative capacity was transferred to the Palestinian Authority before a stable monopoly on weapons existed. Political legitimacy was granted before security structures were consolidated. Armed groups operated in parallel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued their strategy. Infrastructure for power was established faster than infrastructure for responsibility.
The model presupposed that gradual trust would discipline actors who for decades had used violence as their primary political tool. It presupposed that institution-building alone could dampen radicalisation. It presupposed that symbolic recognition would override ideological objectives of continued struggle. It was a construction with weak brakes and high downside.
In 2000 the negotiations collapsed. The second intifada broke out. Suicide bombers blew up buses, restaurants and hotels. Over a thousand Israelis were killed over the course of a few years. Civilian targets were struck systematically. Terror became a daily feature in Israeli everyday life. It was not a marginal deviation from the plan. It was a brutal collapse of the premises.
Israel had to re-establish military control in areas that had been transferred under the Oslo framework. Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 came as a direct response to the fact that the security model did not deliver. The security barrier was built to stop the suicide attacks. It was not erected as part of the Oslo design, but as an emergency measure after the design failed.
The next chapter became Gaza. Israeli withdrawal in 2005. Hamas took power in 2007. Rocket attacks against Israeli cities became an enduring reality. Wars in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2023. Escalations. Round upon round with violence. The two-state solution, the very core ambition, today stands further away than when the agreement was signed in 1993.
When one assesses strategic competence, one must measure against stated objectives. The objective was conflict transformation and lasting peace. The result was enduring instability, periods of intense terror and a region more fragmented than before.
This does not concern intentions. It concerns judgement. To transfer territorial and political capacity before security anchoring was in place was an active decision. To base the architecture on gradual trust without self-triggering sanctions in the event of breach was an active decision. To underestimate the risk posed by parallel armed structures was an active decision.
The consequences became concrete. They were measured in human lives.
At the same time the architects were rewarded with international prestige, top posts and institutional recognition. The narrative of the peace project lived on, even though the final objective did not materialise. Careers strengthened in step with the deterioration of reality.
Here lies the sharpest criticism: When a project of this magnitude fails in its principal objective, and when the risk design proves weak in the face of reality, it is reasonable to question the competence of those who designed it. When misjudgements with high downside do not lead to real accountability, but to further prestige, it points towards a system in which result and reward are detached from one another.
Taxpayers’ money financed the process. Taxpayers’ money financed the diplomacy, the institutions and the careers that followed. The result does not stand in proportion to the effort.
The Oslo Process appears today not as a breakthrough, but as a strategic failure – a solemnly staged experiment in which the risk was underestimated, the consequences were bloody, and the responsibility was spread so thinly that no one bore it in full.
Networks, power and freedom from consequences
Then come the Epstein documents. Millions of pages of emails, contact lists, flight logs and financial connections around a convicted sexual offender who built a global network of politicians, financiers and diplomats. Among the names that appear repeatedly: Terje Rød-Larsen. Documented contact. Documented loan of 130,000 dollars. Repeated communication. This is not a loose, incidental social touch. It is a relationship that involved money and proximity.
Rød-Larsen has for decades represented Norway at the diplomatic top tier. He has led the International Peace Institute, an institution financed by states and closely linked to the UN system. He has operated in rooms where trust is currency. In such positions, one’s circle of association is not a private detail. It is part of the security profile. When a person in such a role chooses to accept a loan from a financier with a controversial reputation, it says something about the assessments that are made – and what kind of risk is accepted.
This must be seen in conjunction with the rest of the career.
A tax case with a possible claim of over 800,000 kroner that ends in a fine of 50,000.
A peace project that was sold as a historic breakthrough and which in retrospect stands with prolonged instability and thousands killed in the next phase of the conflict.
Top international posts that continued regardless of whether the principal objective was realised.
Thereafter documented connections to one of the most compromising figures in modern power history.
And now: charges (siktelser) of gross corruption against Mona Juul and a charge of aiding and abetting against Rød-Larsen himself – matters that are under investigation. A charge is not a conviction. But it is serious enough to place yet another question mark over judgement and role understanding in the same power milieu.
When these elements are placed side by side, they do not appear as isolated mishaps. It draws a picture of an elite that moves within a closed circuit of state positions, international posts and mutual protection. The same names circulate between ministries, UN bodies, think tanks and boards. Prestige accumulates. Risk is absorbed.
Ordinary citizens live with the direct consequences of their own mistakes. Tax claims are enforced. Reputation can collapse within a few days. Income disappears. For the inner circle of power, the burden appears to be more manageable. Legal processes take time. Institutions express continued trust. New positions open.
This concerns structure. Arbeiderpartiet’s foreign policy milieu has for decades had a dominant role in Norwegian diplomacy and aid. The network is dense. Recruitment occurs internally. Assessments and recommendations run back and forth between the same actors. When one of them is struck by criticism or investigation, the system as a whole is not struck. It adapts and continues.
When a top diplomat can accept money from a later convicted abuser, when a tax case involving significant sums ends with a limited reaction, when a foreign policy project with high downside does not receive clear accountability of the architects – then a sense of freedom from consequences arises at the top.
Taxpayers finance this apparatus. They finance the diplomacy, the institutions and the international positions. Trust is the precondition for it to function. When questions are again and again raised about judgement and responsibility in the same circle, that trust is weakened.
The criticism therefore addresses the culture of power as a whole. A system in which position provides buffer, in which network provides shielding, and in which result does not always appear to be decisive for further career. When power is concentrated over time, without corresponding strict accountability, the distance between elite and population arises.
It is this distance that is now discussed. Not as rumour. Not as feeling. But as a conjunction of events, relationships and structures that collectively raise a legitimate question about how robust the system of accountability actually is when it concerns power’s own.