Agreement on national budget (Aftenposten/Saturday)

Just before 9 pm on Friday it became clear that an agreement on next year’s national budget had been signed and sealed by the ruling coalition parties and the Progress Party. In relation to the Government’s original budget proposal the changes amounted to NOK 4.4 billion. Friday evening was far more nerve wracking than many members of the coalition parties which form the minority government led by Kjell Magne Bondevik had anticipated earlier in the day. Several times it was predicted that an agreement was just around the corner, but further meetings only resulted in the opposite. The Progress Party was not happy with what had been laid on the table, and new rounds of negotiation ensued. The Government has had great difficulty finding the funds to pay for the Progress Party’s demands.

NOK 4.4 billion but still squabbling (Dagbladet/Saturday)

The Government was pulled back from the brink and the Progress Party won acceptance for changes to the budget amounting to NOK 4.4 billion. But the row between Carl I. Hagen, chairman of the Progress Party, and Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik rumbles on. According to Mr Hagen the budget deal means more of Norway’s oil revenues will be used to fund public spending. Dagbladet has gained access to the dramatic list of cuts which the ruling coalition parties do not want to publish until today. To finance the NOK 4.4 billion in changes to the budget that the Progress Party has pushed through, NOK 800 million in cuts will have to be made and various revenues increased. The budget agreement also means that NOK 2.2 billion which was intended to finance postal and railway workers’ pension schemes will now not be forthcoming. The funding shortfall will have to be made up by the companies themselves. Siv Jensen, the Progress Party’s negotiator, said yesterday evening that the Progress Party was satisfied with the changes it had gained acceptance for, and that the fear of the Labour tax increases was one of the main reasons for doing a budget deal with the Government. Pensions for married couples will increase, but they will still jointly receive less than their unmarried counterparts. Local government financing is to receive a NOK 1 billion boost, including NOK 287 million as part of the pre-school day care reform. The duty on spirits is to be cut by 10.9 per cent. Low-paid workers will pay less tax following a one per cent increase in the basic personal allowance.

Grey victory (Verdens Gang/Saturday)

The Progress Party’s Siv Jensen believes yesterday’s budget agreement means that more of the country’s oil revenues will go to fund public spending next year. Married and cohabiting pensioners have emerged the winners from the budget tug-of-war. They will see their basic pensions rise by a total of NOK 5,400 next year. "We are not breaking out the champagne over this agreement," said an exhausted Siv Jensen yesterday evening, after two days of lengthy negotiations in the Storting. She accused the ruling coalition parties of not having shown any willingness to make real cuts. "In reality, what they are doing is using more oil money. To put it this way, there is a lot of "funny money" here, as Finance Minister Per-Kristian Foss himself would have put it," she said. Ms Jensen also claimed that a large part of the money to be used to finance the Progress Party’s changes in the budget is a product of what she described as creative accounting.

Stoltenberg: Hagen has shown his true colours (Dagbladet)

"Carl I. Hagen has revealed himself to be a man who takes from those who have least and gives to those who have most," said Labour leader Jens Stoltenberg. Mr Stoltenberg was reacting to the budget agreement between the Progress Party and the ruling coalition parties. He was particularly upset on behalf of the elderly and those receiving incapacity benefits. "Mr Hagen has made sure that almost all chronically sick pensioners and people receiving incapacity benefits will still have to pay prescription charges. Those who receive only the minimum state pension will no longer have to pay, but everyone else will," he said, claiming to have a long list of similar examples. Mr Stoltenberg’s furious outburst gives an indication of what we can expect in next year’s local election campaign. Labour is planning to run a hard-hitting campaign against a steadily growing Progress Party.

Budget saved after creative use of numbers (Aftenposten/Sunday)

The Government has come under heavy fire for the way it found the final NOK 2 billion which clinched a budget deal with the Progress Party. The Government discovered the billions it needed after what the opposition has described as a ‘money laundering’ process. "This is astonishingly creative accounting," said Labour’s Jens Stoltenberg. On Friday – the same day the agreement was signed – Progress Party economic policy spokesperson Siv Jensen attacked the way Finance Minister Per-Kristian Foss had come up with the funds to pay for her party’s budget demands. The ‘laundering’ accusation has to do with the fact that the Government is demanding NOK 2 billion from Norway Post and NSB, the national rail company. This is money the state claims these publicly owned companies ‘owe’ the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund because they have previously paid too little in pension premiums for their employees.

Pension battle after budget deal (Dagsavisen)

The budget agreement between the ruling coalition parties and the Progress Party puts the pension rights of more than 30,000 employees at risk. Employee organizations are furious. The budget agreement prompted senior executives at both Norway Post and NSB to say they would consider withdrawing from the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund. This is because pension premiums to the public service fund are higher than to other pension schemes. Executives at Norway Post and NSB attempted to get the employees to agree to switch pension schemes during this spring’s wage negotiations, but failed.

Immigration Directorate employee on fraud charges (Aftenposten/Saturday)

An employee at the Immigration Directorate (UDI) has been charged with embezzling NOK 3.8 million and transferring the money abroad. The UDI notified the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime on Tuesday evening of its suspicions regarding the employee, who occupies a low-ranking administrative position. The police mounted a search and seizure operation that same evening. By the time the police were notified, the UDI had suspected for several weeks that something was amiss. A routine accounting check revealed a suspicious transfer of funds to a bank account abroad. Further investigation led to the employee who has now been charged.

More fighter jet parts found (Aftenposten/Saturday)

The commission of inquiry which will once again look into the 1982 Mehamn air crash will have some new pieces for this incomplete jigsaw puzzle. Several new witnesses have come forward following NRK’s "Focal Point" documentary programme on the accident and the statements made by Widerøe pilot Ulf Larsstuvold. Taken together the statements made on Thursday could be of great interest to the new commission of inquiry. Former navy diver Terje Johnsen, aboard the naval vessel KNM Horten, was one of the first on the scene after the accident in 1982, in which a Twin Otter belonging to the Widerøe airline crashed into the sea. On Thursday he told the newspaper, Tønsbergs Blad, that a piece of wreckage that did not belong to the Widerøe plane was found at the crash site. Captain Oddmund Bjørnaali at the Bodø military airbase has identified the part and confirmed that it belongs to a Harrier jump jet. The part shows clear signs of having collided with a huge object. Several witness testimonies support the theory that the Widerøe Twin Otter crashed after colliding with a British Harrier.

Forced into silence (NTB/Saturday)

Corporal Svein Ole Sandvik saw two Sea Harrier jump jets inside the no-fly zone in the hour before Widerøe’s Twin Otter crashed into the sea at Gamvik in 1982. Since then he has been under standing orders to keep his mouth shut, writes Aftenposten. "We were under orders that nothing was to leak out. It has been very difficult to go for so many years practically knowing the reason for the accident without being allowed to say anything," Sandvik told Aftenposten. Together with ten others he was on duty at the Armed Forces surveillance and early warning station at Hannomaras in Kautokeino on 11 March 1982, when 15 people were killed in the air crash at Gamvik.

Helskog accused of inflicting irreperable damage on Norwegian ski sport (Dagbladet/Saturday)

With his journalistic credibility in tatters, Gerhard Helskog is thinking of quitting his job. Despite yesterday’s apology from TV2, Bjørge Stenbsøl, chef de mission at the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports, says the damage is irreparable. "This is the worst media scandal in modern Norwegian history. It was a scandalous programme. Their apology is just the first step. It is likely that we will sue, and TV2 will have a huge job to do," said Mr Stensbøl. Gerhard Helskog has been one of the leading figures in Norwegian investigative journalism. Today he has the dubious honour of being the man whose television documentary programme besmirched Norway’s national sport through an appalling piece of shoddy journalism.

1. Worth Noting

• For the first time in history the Progress Party has signed a budget deal with a sitting government. Carl I. Hagen, the Progress Party’s mighty chairman, has won a place in polite society. The historic deal gives the Progress Party NOK 6 billion for its key policy issues, NOK 1 billion more than Mr Hagen’s magic limit.
  (Dagsavisen/Saturday)
• While the parties in the Storting are squabbling over most of the items in next year’s national budget, there is broad agreement on one thing – financial assistance for political parties must be increased. Øystein Djupedal of the Socialist Left Party defends the increase in party funding. "Financing political parties is the same as financing democracy. It is necessary. The alternative is an even greater reliance on private donations," he said.
  (Dagens Næringsliv/Saturday)
• During last week’s Nato summit, Defence Minister Kristin Krohn Devold promised major priority changes in Norway’s defence budget. The Government’s budget partner, the Progress Party’s Siv Jensen, says she has never heard of the Defence Minister’s promises to bring forward investments that will cost upwards of NOK 1 billion.
  (Klassekampen)
• Domestic electricity prices have risen by 25 per cent since August, and they are due to rise still further. Electricity costs for an ordinary Norwegian household could end up at almost twice the average for 2002. This corresponds to an increase of NOK 1,000 a month for an ordinary household.
  (Aftenposten/Saturday)
• The Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports, the Norwegian Ski Association, the Norwegian Skating Association and former top-flight competitors are considering joining forces to sue TV2 and its documentary programme "The State of the Nation" for compensation for having blackened their good name and reputation.
  (Aftenposten/Saturday)
• Gerhard Helskog has now sent personal letters of apology to Bjørn Dæhlie, Vegard Ulvang and Thomas Alsgaard following the insinuations regarding doping which were made during his "The State of the Nation" documentary programme on TV2.
  (Verdens Gang)
• Only Austria receives more asylum seekers per head of population than Norway. During the past six years the number of people seeking asylum in Norway has risen by 730 per cent. 2002 is expected to be another record year, with 17,000 asylum seekers arriving in the country. However, the number of bogus asylum seekers has been cut in half in the past year. The bus-loads of asylum seekers from central Europe have stayed away this year.
  (Dagsavisen/Saturday)
• 40 local authorities in 15 areas are considering amalgamating in the hope of strengthening their financial status. But first they face local opposition and rancorous local referenda. Local Government and Regional Affairs Minister Erna Solberg wants to cut the number of local authorities by 100 over the next 15 years – preferably voluntarily.
  (Aftenposten)
• MP Lars Rise asked not to be sent to prison when he was caught driving at 133 km/h in the Nordby Tunnel in Ås. Mr Rise claimed that as a member of the Storting’s Foreign Affairs Committee he needed to be able to travel where he wanted, and a prison sentence could make it difficult for him to obtain a visa to certain countries. However, the court turned a deaf ear to his plea. This week the Oslo District Court sentenced the Christian Democrat politician to 14 days in gaol.
  (Aftenposten/Saturday)

2. Today’s comment from Nationen

The budget compromise between the Government and the Progress Party is primarily a victory for the Storting’s leading tactician, Carl I. Hagen. After having first broken off negotiations, sent the ruling coalition parties cap in hand to Labour’s door, and then transmogrified into the statesman who saved the budget, he has secured another year at the very heart of Norwegian political life. The deal itself is not too bad, even for the two centrist parties in the ruling coalition. Mr Hagen and the Progress Party have made sure they threw the Christian Democrats a sufficient number of sweeteners that the agreement, without too much difficulty, can be defended by all sides. In some ways it is the Progress Party which has got least out of the whole deal. However, the most important reason for the Progress Party to conclude another settlement with the Government is this: the deal binds the Government to the Progress Party for another twelve months. Everyone who has seen what capital Carl I. Hagen has managed to make out of this relationship over the past year knows what is in store. The Prime Minister probably knows it too. He seems increasingly like an errand boy doing the bidding of right wing forces both inside the cabinet and in the Storting itself. Kjell Magne Bondevik is now paying the price of choosing to form a coalition government with the Conservatives – a government whose existence depends on the whim of the Progress Party. The man who led the country’s first centrist coalition has in a few short months completed the work initiated by the voters at the general election last autumn. In the long term it could prove a heavy burden to bear for Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.