Level pegging (Verdens Gang)

Conservative Party chairman Jan Petersen has every reason to smile. Support for the Conservatives has risen to 26.5 per cent, according to the latest opinion poll carried out by Norsk Gallup on behalf of VG and TV2. This means the Labour Party and the Conservatives are level pegging. "This is a very good day for us, but we must keep our feet on the ground. There are still four months to go before the election, and we will have to put in a lot of hard work," said Mr Petersen. "We prefer good poll results to bad ones," said Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. He will fight for the party, policies he believes in and himself. The reason support for the two has swung so much is that over a third of the voters are still sitting on the fence. According to the poll, support for the Conservatives has jumped 6 percentage points, while the Labour Party slips 4.5 percentage points. There are only small changes in support for the other parties.

Arrogant PM punished by unions (Dagbladet)

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg acted arrogantly when he rejected a coalition deal with the Socialist Left Party, said Per Østvold, a senior representative of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO). That arrogance has cost the Labour Party NOK 500,000 and probably a whole lot of votes. Instead of giving the Labour Party NOK 3 million in campaign contributions, as outgoing LO president Yngve Hågensen and the LO central office had wanted, a surprise majority of the representatives at the LO congress voted to give Jens NOK 2.5 million, with another NOK 500,000 going to Kristin Halvorsen, leader of the Socialist Left Party.

LO warned not to cut support for Labour Party (Aftenposten)

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) will weaken its influence if it splits its campaign contributions between the Labour Party and the Socialist Left Party, said veteran Labour politician and former cabinet minister, Kjell Opseth. "I have nothing against the union movement becoming more radical, but the LO must not put itself in a position where its influence on the way society develops is diminished," said Mr Opseth.

Conservatives to make students to pay tuition fees (Dagsavisen)

The Conservative Party’s higher education committee is proposing that if the party comes to power universities and colleges of higher education should become private limited companies, and students should have to pay tuition fees in return for their higher education. "These proposals are neither controversial or particularly drastic. They are, in fact, quite unremarkable," said the Conservatives’ Inge Lønning.

Petoro – giant new Norwegian oil company (Aftenposten)

Yesterday saw the birth of a new Norwegian oil company, Petoro, which will be the largest to operate in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and one of the world’s biggest oil producers. One in three barrels of oil produced in the Norwegian sector will carry Petoro’s logo. The giant new Norwegian oil company is the result of the partial privatization of Statoil. Up to now Statoil has taken care of the State’s Direct Financial Interest (SDFI) in Norway’s oil fields. That responsibility has now been given to Petoro, which now administers 78.5 per cent of the SDFI. The company’s name comes from Pet for petroleum and oro for gold.

Unions want to regulate executives’ pay (Dagens Næringsliv)

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) is thinking of demanding that executive pay be regulated through inclusion in the standard agreements on terms and conditions operating in the different industries or as part of the annual round of wage negotiations between employers and unions. "We thought employers and senior managers had some common sense. But they have clearly demonstrated that they haven’t. That is why we have to find new ways to slow down the growth in executive salaries," said the LO’s new president Gerd-Liv Valla.

Health Minister blocks hospital construction start in Trondheim (Aftenposten)

Health Minister Tore Tønne is refusing to give the go-ahead for construction work to start on the new regional hospital in Trondheim, RiT 2000. The vast building project will therefore be postponed for at least a year. Mr Tønne wants alternative sites evaluated. RiT 2000 will cover 200,000 square metres. The project was originally estimated to cost NOK 4 billion, but that figure has now risen to NOK 9 billion.

Worth Noting

• A drama over tax and healthcare is being played out in the Storting. It is the Centre Party which will decide whether surgery paid for by an employer should be tax-free or not. If the party says yes, it will mean a bitter defeat for Finance Minister Karl Eirik Schjøtt-Pedersen. If the party says no, it will represent another nail in the coffin for a potential centre alliance coalition. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Centre Party chairman Odd Roger Enoksen does not want an alliance with the Labour Party. He believes the party’s policies are leading to victory for market forces and privatization, and blames the party leadership. (Nationen)
• The Government has admitted that the construction of holiday homes in Norway, and particularly in the mountains, is out of control. The Environment Ministry is about to announce proposals for legally binding plans for each county to bring the boom in holiday home construction under control. (Dagbladet)
• Tore I. Sandvold, Director General at the Petroleum and Energy Ministry, has been the unseen power behind Norway’s oil policy for years. But with the creation of Petoro, he is about to step out of the shadows and into the limelight. Yesterday Mr Sandvold was appointed executive chairman of the Government’s new oil company. (Aftenposten)
• Top IT company executives received record bonuses in 2000, a year in which technology share prices fell sharply. The top executives at Norway’s largest IT companies earned salaries and bonuses worth more than double the year before. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• When Crown Prince Haakon weds Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby in Oslo on 25 August, the display unit of His Majesty the King’s Guards will be taking part in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The King’s Guards are therefore being forced to call up veterans to provide the musical backdrop to the wedding celebrations, both outside the Palace and along Oslo’s main street, Karl Johans gate, to the Cathedral where the wedding ceremony will take place.

Today’s comment from Nationen

A new wind is blowing across the Norwegian political landscape. The decision by the annual congress of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) to contribute campaign funds to the Socialist Left Party as well as the Labour Party is a very interesting signal, both in a historical perspective and in relation to the upcoming general election. It means that the LO has slipped its leash and that the old ties to the Labour Party have been severed – probably for good. The party monopoly has been broken, which is astonishing enough in itself. The resolution was adopted against the wishes of the LO leadership. Providing campaign contributions to a party other than the Labour Party is undoubtedly a signal that union members want to build alliances with others who share their political opinions. New times demand new solutions, and a pragmatic approach to relations between the unions and the political parties could be a smart move – also for the LO. Employee rights are under pressure. If the Christian Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives and the Progress Party together win a majority of seats in the Storting, the current sick pay scheme will disappear. This could be one of the decisive issues of the election campaign.