Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has dismissed Anniken Huitfeldt as foreign minister amid stock market scandals, saying it was necessary to restore confidence and calm controversy over her husband’s transactions and resulting potential conflicts of interest.
A month after the Norwegian Labour Party’s poor showing in local elections, Støre replaced several of his cabinet ministers on Monday.
“We want to make changes in our team to improve our performance in the future,” Støre told the press.
The election saw opposition leader Erna Solberg’s Conservative Party emerge as the largest party nationally, the first time the Conservatives have come first in a national election since the 1924 general election.
These results are partly due to a growing distrust of the Labour Party, which has been embroiled in a series of scandals involving problematic shareholdings by ministers, leading to suspicions of conflicts of interest, with the case of Huitfeld being the most prominent.
While in office, Huitfeld’s husband bought shares in arms manufacturer Kongsberg Gruppen, although she claimed to have been unaware of this.
“The issues of buying and selling shares and conflicts of interest are part of the background to Anniken’s resignation, but not all of it,” Støre told a press conference, explaining that he dismissed the ministers and not those who resigned.
“None of my ministers has asked to resign. All want to continue,” he added.
Huitfeldt will return to her seat in the Norwegian parliament and be replaced by Espen Barth Eide as a foreign minister.
Eide, who has been minister for climate and environment for the past two years, served as foreign minister from 2012 to 2013 at the end of former prime minister and current NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure and as defence minister before that.
(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com)
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