Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday
Norway with fresh Palestine aid for UN agency, EU parliament and Norway set for deep sea mining row, and other news making the headlines on Thursday.
Norway with fresh UNRWA donation
Norway on Wednesday announced a fresh donation to the financially stricken UN agency for Palestinian refugees as a humanitarian crisis grips the war-torn Gaza Strip.
UNRWA plays a critical role in distributing aid and providing life-saving assistance to Gaza, where an Israeli siege during the four-month-old war has sparked dire shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel.
But major donors to UNRWA, including Britain, Germany and the United States, suspended funding after allegations that some of its staff were involved in the unprecedented October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the war.
Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the transfer of 275 million Norwegian kroner ($26 million) would support Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, including occupied east Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Gazans are starving and dying of infectious diseases due to a collapsed health system, making the support “more important than ever”, added International Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim.
EU Parliament and Norway in a row over seabed mining
After the European Parliament voted almost unanimously in favour of a resolution expressing concerns at Norway’s move to go ahead with seabed mining in the Arctic, Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre has come out fighting.
“What has been talked about in the European Parliament in recent days has been a description of what Norway is actually doing that does not match reality,” Støre told Norwegian newswire NTB.
Norway’s plan has been hit with heavy criticism by environmental groups. However, Støre has said that such criticism ignored other work Norway was doing.
“There are a number of organisations that want to maximise the crisis in order to gain attention. But I think that is very short-sighted because the whole green script, offshore wind, solar cells and everything we are going to invest in, will need these minerals,” Støre said.
He said he had recently written a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, about the matter to “avoid misunderstandings”.
Norway unlikely to scrap wealth tax any time soon
Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum has said that removing the wealth tax would negatively impact many people in Norway.
“I am not going to remove the wealth tax. It will shift the tax burden from the richest to most people. We will never take part in that,” Vedum told the newspaper VG.
He warned that more taxes affecting a wider reach of people would need to be introduced to cover the wealth tax.
Recently, increased property taxes and the introduction of inheritance tax have been floated as alternatives to the wealth tax.
“Increased housing taxation will affect ordinary people and the middle class. And inheritance tax is out of the question for us to reintroduce,” he said.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, he said that removing the wealth tax would reduce the state’s income by approximately 34.5 billion.
Conservatives with healthy lead in polls
A recent poll from ABC Nyheter and Altinget has seen the Conservatives increase their lead in the polls by 5.7 percentage points.
The party would be far away the biggest in Norway if an election was held in Norway, with a 31.2 percent share of the total vote.
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Norway with fresh UNRWA donation
Norway on Wednesday announced a fresh donation to the financially stricken UN agency for Palestinian refugees as a humanitarian crisis grips the war-torn Gaza Strip.
UNRWA plays a critical role in distributing aid and providing life-saving assistance to Gaza, where an Israeli siege during the four-month-old war has sparked dire shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel.
But major donors to UNRWA, including Britain, Germany and the United States, suspended funding after allegations that some of its staff were involved in the unprecedented October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the war.
Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the transfer of 275 million Norwegian kroner ($26 million) would support Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, including occupied east Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Gazans are starving and dying of infectious diseases due to a collapsed health system, making the support “more important than ever”, added International Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim.
EU Parliament and Norway in a row over seabed mining
After the European Parliament voted almost unanimously in favour of a resolution expressing concerns at Norway’s move to go ahead with seabed mining in the Arctic, Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre has come out fighting.
“What has been talked about in the European Parliament in recent days has been a description of what Norway is actually doing that does not match reality,” Støre told Norwegian newswire NTB.
Norway’s plan has been hit with heavy criticism by environmental groups. However, Støre has said that such criticism ignored other work Norway was doing.
“There are a number of organisations that want to maximise the crisis in order to gain attention. But I think that is very short-sighted because the whole green script, offshore wind, solar cells and everything we are going to invest in, will need these minerals,” Støre said.
He said he had recently written a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, about the matter to “avoid misunderstandings”.
Norway unlikely to scrap wealth tax any time soon
Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum has said that removing the wealth tax would negatively impact many people in Norway.
“I am not going to remove the wealth tax. It will shift the tax burden from the richest to most people. We will never take part in that,” Vedum told the newspaper VG.
He warned that more taxes affecting a wider reach of people would need to be introduced to cover the wealth tax.
Recently, increased property taxes and the introduction of inheritance tax have been floated as alternatives to the wealth tax.
“Increased housing taxation will affect ordinary people and the middle class. And inheritance tax is out of the question for us to reintroduce,” he said.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, he said that removing the wealth tax would reduce the state’s income by approximately 34.5 billion.
Conservatives with healthy lead in polls
A recent poll from ABC Nyheter and Altinget has seen the Conservatives increase their lead in the polls by 5.7 percentage points.
The party would be far away the biggest in Norway if an election was held in Norway, with a 31.2 percent share of the total vote.
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