Norway used to rank among the major donors to Ukraine, both in terms of military and humanitarian aid, but now its support is being blasted as “pathetic.” Critics are calling on Norway to donate far more of its so-called “war profits” on Norwegian gas sales to Europe, and to dip much deeper into the country’s huge sovereign wealth fund known as the Oil Fund.
The latest round of criticism comes from the editors-in-chief of two major Scandinavian newspapers. Christian Jensen of Politikken in Copenhagen and Peter Wolodarski of Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm shared their views on their fellow Scandinavians in Oslo in an unusually harsh commentary published Friday in Norway’s own largest newspaper, Aftenposten.
“Right now it’s more important than ever to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our European allies and the heroic, hard-fighting Ukrainians,” Jensen and Wolodarski wrote. Given how the new US president Donald Trump’s “alliance with Russia is out of Europe’s control,” they wrote, “all European countries must now do everything, absolutely everything, in their power to support Ukraine morally, politically and economically.” They stressed how the Ukrainian people are “paying the price so that all of us can live in peace and freedom.”
They also pointed out that most European countries have borrowed money and added to their national debt to support Ukraine. Norway doesn’t need to borrow, in part because of all the oil and gas revenues flowing into its economy and because of its huge Oil Fund. It was set up during the first government led by Jens Stoltenberg more than 25 years ago to save the vast majority of the country’s oil and gas revenues to help secure pensions for future generations. Stoltenberg went on to become secretary general of NATO and recently returned to Norway, where he’s now finance minister with a large amount of power over the Oil Fund.
Norway has also been stashing away profits on its major increase in gas sales to Europe, which have helped make up for the loss of gas supplies from Russia that were cut off after Russia invaded Ukraine. While Europeans were relieved over the reliable replacement of gas from Norway, they’ve also paid a high price for it, with Norway estimated to have earned hundreds of billions of kroner over the past three years.
Such “war profits,” a term Norwegian officials dislike, started generating controversy just months after the war began. The controversy continued even amidst assurrances from the Norwegian government that they would be directed towards military support for Ukraine. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre also unveiled Norway’s Nansen Program, which has committed at least NOK 135 billion in aid to Ukraine from 2023 to 2030.
Norway, however, donated just NOK 17 billion last year and recently committed another NOK 35 billion this year. That compares to the equivalent of NOK 27 billion from Denmark last year, while Sweden has contributed around 73.2 billion in support to Ukraine over the past three years.
“It’s striking that the European country that has indirectly earned the most economically on the war in Ukraine (Norway) only places 11th among countries that have donated the most,” the Swedish and Danish editors wrote. They questioned why Norway isn’t contributing at least as much as the rest of the Nordic and Baltic countries, especially since Norway is among countries sharing a border with Russia.
They welcomed Norway’s offer last week to strengthen Ukraine’s own defense industry, the recent announcements of aid and how Norway (which has a total population of just 5.5 million) has taken in around 90,000 Ukrainian refugees. “But what about the money earned on the war? That’s staying in Norway,” Wolodarski and Jensen wrote. “That’s not only wrong, its reprehensible and pathetic. It risks becoming a stain on Norway’s history.”
They’re not the only ones criticizing the Norwegian government recently. Several professors and economists within Norway have also lashed out at Prime Minister Støre and his newly appointed finance minister Jens Stoltenberg, who spent the past 10 years leading NATO and calling on all its members to support Ukraine as much as possible. Now Stoltenberg has been sending some new signals, stressing how all of Norway’s oil and gas profits are stashed away in the Oil Fund, and only 3 percent of the size of the fund (based on estimated average returns) can be used in a given year.
Stoltenberg’s own finance ministry has calculated that high gas prices in 2022 and 2023 yielded “extra income” for Norway that amounted to NOK 1,270 billion, a dizzying amount. Knut Anton Mork, professor emeritus at NTNU in Trondheim anda macro-economist at Guarantum Wealth Management Norge, joined Professor Håvard Halland at the Edinburgh Business School in claiming the 3 percent-rule for the oil fund “is irrevelant for war profits.”
In a commentary of their own this week in newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN), they claimed that Stoltenberg’s most important obligation now as finance minister is to still support Ukraine with what Norway has earned on the war.
“As secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg urged politicians in Norway and other NATO countries to contribute generously to Ukraine’s heroic resistance to Russian aggression,” Mork and Halland wrote. “As finance minister, he’s saying something else.”
They’re not buying it, on the grounds Norway had a near monopoly on gas to Europe until other countries could deliver LNG on ships. “That monopoly situation was a direct consequence of the war in Ukraine and without doubt the main reason for the historically high gas prices,” the two economists wrote. They also stressed that Norway simply “responded to market demand and kept the profits for itself. At the same time, our Nordic and Baltic neighbours contributed more than Norway to Ukraine, as a percentage of GNP.”
A third argument they mount is that Norwegian earnings on oil and gas should be saved for future generations, apart from the 3 percent than can be tapped from the Oil Fund in any given year. But, like the Swedish and Danish editors wrote, “what can be more important for future generations than to grow up in a world, on a continent and in a country with peace, freedom and democracy?” Mork and Halland wrote that money in the Oil Fund “will amount to little comfort if freedom and democracy are lost in the process.”
Trym Riksen, leader of portfolio management at investment firm Gabler in Oslo, has proposed that Norway’s Oil Fund could itself finance Europe’s own military build-up. That’s becoming more and more important, since the US under Trump now seems more allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin than with Europe. A meeting between Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday did not go well, either.
“While the rest of the world has debt and struggles with a lack of liquidity, Norway is sitting on the world’s largest reservoir of liquid assets,” Riksen wrote in DN last week. Norway may be a small nation with a small military of its own, he noted, “but it has an advantage no other European nation has: The country is hugely rich and can reallocate considerable liquid assets to a degree no one else can.” Riksen insisted he wasn’t suggesting that Norway should just give money away, but perhaps launch defense bonds earmarked for investment in the build-up and defense of Europe.
Others seem more inclined towards pure donations at a time of war in Europe, at the very least through coordinated efforts with other European allies. Mork quoted an American historian, Timothy Snyder, who said during a recent lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris that European countries “should throw in everything you have to Ukraine: EU membership, troops, massive investment. Otherwise you will live in the shadow of war permanently.”
Stoltenberg, meanwhile, can also have a chance to follow up his own appeals for as much support for Ukraine as possible and, according to Mork and Halland, “for what he rightly stood for as secretary general of NATO.”
On Friday came news that Prime Minister Støre would be attending a new European summit in London on Sunday. State broadcaster NRK reported that Støre has been invited by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who recently met with Trump in Washington, as have Emmanuel Macron of France and Ukraine’s Zelensky, who needs all the help he can get. Their goal will be to set further strategy for European security, at a time when relations with the US under Trump are deteriorating rapidly.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund