Negotiations over the Norwegian Labour government’s proposed state budget broke down on Friday. Two of Norway’s five left-leaning political parties, the Greens and the Socialist Left (SV), declared they were putting the state budget talks on pause after losing patience with Labour, especially over oil policy.

The Norwegian government’s state budget proposal is the single most important document that guides the country for the next year. Political negotiations over it broke down on Friday, for now. PHOTO: Morten Brakestad/Stortinget

“We have stretched ourselves far and been willing to go along with several issues that are difficult for us,” the Greens’ chief negotiator Ingrid Liland told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) late Friday afternoon, “but we don’t see the same goodwill from Labour. We don’t see any movement, only ultimatums.”

SV had said much the same just a half-hour earlier. “We don’t see any real willingness to come closer on issues that are important us, and would make sure that this is a budget for welfare, the environment and solidarity,” said SV’s communications chief Espen Løkeland-Stai. He said SV would resume negotiations “when the Labour Party shows adequate willingness to meet us halfway.”

Labour, the Greens (MDG), SV, the Reds (Rødt) and Labour’s former government partner, the Center Party, have been negotiating the past two weeks over the state budget proposal that Labour presented in October. It sparked immediate controversy, also from Center, not least because it deviated from several stands Labour had taken during the election campaign.

Election results in September also left Labour having to negotiate with four other parties on the left, never easy when they include two relatively far-left parties (SV and the Reds) and the much more conservative and protectionist Center Party. The Greens, which won enough votes to engage in budget negotiations for the first time, have been at the forefront and somewhat in the middle while remaining steadfast on various climate issues.

Member of Parliament Ingrid Liland has been serving as the Greens chief budget negotiator over the past few weeks, but lost patience with Labour on Friday. PHOTO: Morten Brakestad/Stortinget

The Greens have also won important support from the large trade union federation Fagforbundet, which mostly represents public sector workers and has more than 400,000 members. It’s part of LO, Norway’s largest labour confederaton, which is turn is among Labour’s biggest supporters.

Newspaper Aftenposten reported on Friday that Fagforbundet supports the Greens’ key budget demand for a restructuring (omstilling) of Norway’s economy that’s long been dominated by oil and gas production. The Greens want to halt exploration for new sources of oil and gas, draw up a plan for phasing out Norwegian oil and gas operations, raise the fee for carbon emissions and introduce a new fee on oil and gas production that would finance climate measures in developing countries.

“There’s no doubt that the oil and gas business must be restructured towards renewable energy,” Helene Harsvik Skeibrok, leader of Fagforbundet, told Aftenposten. “It’s absolutely crucial to make a plan for this.” The trade union federation’s former leader, Mette Nord, is also a member of Labour’s central board.

Yet Labour so far hasn’t budged from its rejection of the Greens’ plans to formally start preparing for the end of Norway’s oil era. There’s disagreement among Norway’s trade unions on the future of oil business, in which many other union members work. The Center Party is even more pro-oil than Labour and didn’t want to even discuss any changes in oil policy, while SV and Rødt support the Greens’ phase-out plans.

Bjørn Arild Gram, who served as Norway’s defense minister when Labour and Center were government partners, has been leading budget negotiations for the Center Party. He’s shown here meeting local media when Labour’s state budget proposal was released in October. PHOTO: Morten Brakestad/Stortinget

Center Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum had predicted “rough” budget negotiations of its own with Labour, which won the national election with 28.2 percent of the vote. Neither Center, SV, the Reds nor the Greens won more than 5.6 percent of the vote, making them more “equal” partners amongst themselves but all with their own agendas.

Center has also accused its former government partner Labour of budget cuts similar to those proposed by the Conservatives in opposition. Center went from 28 seats in Parliament to just nine in the September election and has thus lost much of its former power. All five left-center parties together hold just 49.3 percent of the vote and a bare majority of seats in Parliament.

In a “worst case scenario,” according to election researcher Johannes Bergh, Norway faces a government crisis if the four small parties fail to agree on a state budget with Labour. The budget is supposed to be “in the box” by Sunday, when the Parliament’s finance committee is due to present its position on state funding for next year and debate in Parliament can begin. Tuva Moflag, who’s been leading budget negotiations for Labour, seemed to downplay the Greens’ and SV’s “pause” in negotiations and claimed they would resume, telling NRK that everyone “needs some rest before we continue.”

Budget negotiations have continued in overtime before, and no action on the budget is expected before Friday December 5. Now the talks are likely to rise to the party leader level, although there was still lots of disagreement among them during a nationally televised debate on NRK Thursday night.

Bergh doesn’t think Labour Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, after just winning a second term in office, would step down over the budget and turn government power over to the conservative side. That could propel Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug into the prime minister’s office, since Progress emerged as the biggest party on the conservative side, and all five parties would want to avoid that.

“You can say that the red-green (left-center) parties are doomed to succeed,” another election researcher, Bernt Aardal, told newspaper Dagsavisen. “They have to agree in the end, because there’s way too much at stake for all of them.”

NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund