OSLO: Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that he is returning to government in his native Norway as finance minister.
Stoltenberg led NATO from 2014, until he handed over to current Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the beginning of October. Before leading NATO, Stoltenberg was Norway’s prime minister.
His term at NATO was repeatedly extended to keep a steady hand at the helm after Russian launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, thwarting plans for Stoltenberg to take over as head of Norway’s central bank.
He is returning to government after Norway’s governing coalition split last week with the junior partner, the Center Party, announcing its departure, in a dispute over European Union energy market regulations.
That left current Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, the leader of Stoltenberg’s center-left Labour Party, with several Cabinet posts to fill, among them that of outgoing Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, the leader of the Center Party.
Stoltenberg and Gahr Store appeared together at an event in Oslo on Tuesday, where the prime minister was presenting his new team, but Gahr Store didn’t explicitly mention Stoltenberg’s new job.
But in a statement released by the Munich Security Conference in Germany, which Stoltenberg was due to take over shortly, Stoltenberg said he was “deeply honored to have been asked to help my country at this critical stage.”
“Having carefully considered the current challenges we face, I have decided to accept Prime Minister Store’s request to serve as his Minister of Finance,” he said. “I will return to the Munich Security Conference and to my other responsibilities when my tenure is over. I am grateful for the decision to temporarily release me from my duties while I serve my country once again.”