I am concerned about the future of Norway and Europe.
A great deal is going wrong under the current Labour government and the current EU leadership, and events are unfolding rapidly. As recently as last year, Støre campaigned on a platform of ‘steady leadership’, but in a short space of time he has brought us to a situation where war in Norway is now a plausible scenario. He also used his New Year’s speech to prepare us for this.
The immediate risk is, of course, an attack by Russia as a result of Norway’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.
The tragic thing is that this war could have been avoided had better foreign policy judgement been exercised.
How could Western leaders believe that Russia would tacitly accept NATO’s eastward expansion, particularly with partly Russian-speaking Ukraine (45 mil from Moscow) as a prospective member? As early as 2017, five years before Russia’s invasion, Kåre Willoch issued a very specific warning against this folly and the consequences it would entail.
Jens Stoltenberg was Secretary-General of NATO for ten years until 2024. He could have taken action to prevent the war in Ukraine, but he did not. Instead, he championed NATO’s further expansion eastwards and Europe’s dependence on gas from Russia, whilst the US was to act as the guarantor against the threat from that very same Russia.
Do you also find it hard to grasp the logic of this line of reasoning? During the conversation across the table at the 2018 NATO summit, during which Trump pointed out to Stoltenberg with extreme clarity that it is neither wise nor logical to make Europe dependent on energy from a country against which it seeks US protection, is a case study in security policy folly, with the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jens Stoltenberg, in the leading role.
Incidentally, at the same NATO summit, Trump – who has been teetotalling for 45 years – was met by an EU President (Jean-Claude Juncker) who was so thoroughly intoxicated that he was unable to stand on his own two feet during the official programme.
I wonder what Trump thinks about Europe, and not least the EU, in a situation like this? And what is Trump thinking these days, when the European Parliament, on its own premises, is exhibiting a tasteless, gold-coloured nude statue of him (entitled ‘The Orange Plague’), apparently just to mock him on a personal level in front of the whole world? Is this the sort of (European) leadership the US President is supposed to tell the American people they must sacrifice their soldiers for?
Or could it be that Trump believes Europe will henceforth have to fend for itself to a greater extent, and that he is instead content that the US has now secured a geographical security buffer (Greenland) against a decadent Europe, which in any case shows insufficient will to defend its own continent, whether militarily, demographically or industrially?
Norway is one of the biggest sponsors of the war in Ukraine. We are contributing up to 100 billion kroner in annual support for a war that has now (with drones) been brought right up to the doorstep of Moscow. It is worth noting that it is Norway, not Russia, that is the aggressor in relations between the two countries.
When we pick a fight with the world’s largest nuclear power – which, incidentally, has hardly ever done us any harm – it surprises me that more people do not realise that, in the long run, this could well have dramatic consequences for Norway. After all, actions have consequences. Or do people believe that, year after year following the bombing of Nord Stream, Russia will tacitly accept that Norway is making huge profits from selling gas and oil to Europe, and then using that money to finance Ukraine’s retaliatory warfare against Russia?
What will Norway do on the day there is a large-scale attack on, for example, the gas pipelines in the North Sea or on infrastructure on Norwegian soil? Are we prepared for such a scenario?
Is it wise to electrify all land transport, heating, the operation of data centres and energy production itself (cf. the folly of shore power for the continental shelf and Melkøya) in such a situation? In the Norwegian Armed Forces’ latest notice regarding the requisition of vehicles (from January this year), there were only a handful of electric cars amongst the 13,500 vehicles listed for requisition – despite the fact that electric cars now account for nearly 99 per cent of new car sales. In a future wartime scenario, civilian land transport would largely grind to a halt if an enemy managed to cut off the supply of electricity.
Amidst all this, the government has chosen to weaken Norway’s presence on Svalbard by shutting down coal production, which provided Longyearbyen with energy sourced from extremely close by (several of the coal mines are, in fact, located within the town itself). Instead, tankers carrying oil that has travelled a very long way must now be brought to Longyearbyen, as the only remaining oil refinery in the oil-producing nation of Norway does not supply oil to Svalbard.
When we choose to make ourselves an active opponent of Russia by funding the war in Ukraine, we must at the very least ensure that we remain on good terms with the US. But we do not. The government uses almost every opportunity to drive a wedge between us and the US. In the war in Ukraine, the government is acting disloyally towards our largest and most important ally. The US seeks peace through dialogue, whilst the government wants peace by winning a war against Russia – something that seems highly unlikely and which, in any case, would come at a cost of many hundreds of thousands of lives.
How well-prepared is Norway if we have to manage without military support from the US in a potential war situation on Norwegian soil? The fact is that Norway stands no chance. It does not help the situation that the Norwegian Armed Forces at times display a naivety one would not have thought possible. During the ‘secret’ Operation Capital this September, the Armed Forces used Chinese-made cars fitted with both internal and external activated (spy) cameras.
Unfortunately, this political mismanagement is not limited to security policy.
The government’s energy policy is a walking scandal. In a Norway that is self-sufficient in hydropower and produces several hundred billion litres of oil every year, the government has managed the feat of giving us sky-high prices for electricity and fuel. The government blames the wars in Ukraine and Iran, but the high prices are primarily the result of Norwegian political choices. Electricity, for example, has not become more expensive in those parts of the country that are not yet connected to the mainland by power cables.
To appease the EU, which Norway has rejected twice, the government has stripped the people of their right to control hydropower, and organised access in such a way that we must buy back our own, fully paid-off hydropower at (at times) exorbitant prices set on the EU stock exchange. The business sector and public sector organisations do not benefit from the ‘Norwegian price’, and as all goods and services make use of electricity, all goods and services have also become more expensive – with the accompanying inflation and high interest rates to boot.
‘We shall make a living from saving the climate’, Støre proclaimed in 2019. As Prime Minister, he has subsequently laid his clammy hand on industrial policy as well. The result is a large-scale, subsidised, state-run industrial policy that appears to be carried out on a whim. Has the Norwegian battery adventure resulted in a single battery being sold? I actually don’t think so. Now the government is spending our tax money on capturing plant nutrients from the air (carbon capture) and expanding offshore wind power, an initiative which the government’s own Fiscal Policy Committee has advised against it, as it is not socio-economically viable. The whole thing is disrespectful to taxpayers.
The Government’s tax policy is no better. In recent years, capital has been flowing out of Norway at a rapid pace, be it financial institutions and funds relocating in search of better – and, not least, more predictable – operating conditions abroad, or billionaires who feel compelled to flee the country in order to maintain ownership and the competitiveness of their businesses in Norway. On the Oslo Stock Exchange, there are only two types of players who do not pay wealth tax: the state and foreign nationals. As a Norwegian resident in Norway, you are at a disadvantage if you wish to run a business in Norway. And woe betide anyone who henceforth chooses to move abroad to avoid this discrimination – they’ll face an exit tax. It has gone so far that people are being warned against setting up a business in Norway. The consequence, of course, is that value creation is stifled.
It need not have been this way. Norway could have been Europe’s tax haven, and we could have attracted value creation from players in other countries, but such an idea seems alien to the current government.
Immigration policy is a chapter in itself. Mass immigration from Muslim countries is leading to a segregated Norway. The government seems to believe that Islam is compatible with diversity, but that is wrong. There are no Pride parades in Gaza or Iran, to put it plainly.
The government is phasing out Christianity and embracing Islam, even though it must know that the rise of Islam is taking place at the expense of freedom of expression, women’s rights and freedom of religion. With an increasing proportion of Muslims comes a rise in crime, rapes, stabbings, terrorist attacks and riots. The evidence is unequivocal from countries with a higher proportion of Muslims than Norway has. Instead of addressing the problem, at the start of 2025 the government presented an ‘Action Plan against Islamophobia’, as if that were where the problem lies.
Demographic changes are happening rapidly. At the current rate, it will be only a couple of decades before the indigenous populations of most Western European countries become minorities in their own countries. In Brussels, 88 per cent of the population under the age of 20 are now of non-Belgian origin. In 8 of Germany’s 9 largest cities, over half of young people under the age of 16 have a migrant background.
Almost ten years after Douglas Murray warned of the consequences of mass immigration in his book *The Strange Death of Europe*, little has been learnt. In Germany, several of the other parties want to ban the AfD, the only party that advocates a different immigration policy. (Incidentally, this says a great deal about the democratic mindset of the other parties, given that they wish to ban what is now the country’s largest political party.)
In Norway, it is not quite so easy to find precise figures on the scale of immigration, as Statistics Norway’s definition of an immigrant requires both parents to have been born abroad (which means that the children of, for example, arranged marriages are not counted as immigrants, even if they grow up in a non-Norwegian-speaking home).
There are, however, other indications that illustrate the scale of mass immigration and how misguided it is. At Furuset School in Oslo, 79 per cent of pupils receive supported Norwegian language tuition. ‘We must succeed with integration,’ say those who are still stuck in the mindset of the 1990s. But what do you do when there is nothing left to integrate into?
If we had a critical press, the government would have been properly challenged on several of the above issues, but that is not happening. Through press subsidies, the press has been rendered passive, and given that the vast majority of journalists are on the left, the most important questions about our future are scarcely raised for discussion, precisely because it does not serve the left’s cause.
This is also why the media in Norway would have us believe that the riots in France over the past few weeks, where ‘Allahu akbar!’ is shouted by masked thugs setting schools alight and attacking both the police and the civilian population, are really just French school pupils demonstrating against dilapidated classrooms.
Consequently, the riots in France do not serve as the wake-up call that they ought to be. Incidentally, the situation in France is entirely in line with the description of a society with just under 10 per cent Muslims that Hallgrim Berg provides in his 2013 book *Democracy or Islamism*.
Several countries in Europe are gradually recognising that Islam has no place in a Western democracy. That is why Sweden and Denmark, amongst others, have begun to practise remigration. This should be uncontroversial, given that it is the fundamental principle of refugee law. Nevertheless, the Norwegian Government does not want this. The latest signals from the Government in connection with the presentation of the national budget this week are that mass immigration of people from foreign cultures to Norway is to be increased, not reduced, in the coming years.
What will Oslo’s demographics look like in 20 years’ time? How will a growing number of illiterate people function in the Norwegian knowledge-based society? The PISA results published this September showed that a record-high 41 per cent of Norwegian 15-year-old boys have a ‘low level of proficiency’ (the lowest level) in reading, and even then the 10 per cent deemed to be the weakest pupils were ‘exempt’ from taking the test. Given that these are the results at national level, one can only imagine the state of reading skills at certain schools in east and south-east Oslo.
The greatest risk in the short term, however, is the war in Ukraine. What implications will we see if the war escalates? Should we not at the very least support the US’s initiative for peace negotiations, and possibly facilitate a way out for Putin that he could live with, so that an end to the war could be brought about? No, the government would rather increase the financial aid that is keeping the war going. That does not seem reassuring.
An acquaintance with considerable expertise in defence policy recently concluded a lecture on the war in Ukraine in this way: ‘If you corner a rat, it will eventually bite; and this rat has 5,200 nuclear warheads.”
We need completely new politicians, and it’s urgent.
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