Norway is considering tapping its sovereign wealth fund to dramatically increase its support for Ukraine amid signs that US military backing is waning.
Europe is in crisis mode after a bitter clash between Trump and Zelenskyy at the White House, and the Trump administration is reportedly considering cutting off all military supplies to Ukraine.
Norway is sitting on €1.7 trillion in the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, including an estimated €109 billion in war-related profits from increased gas prices in 2022 and 2023.
The Nordic country has so far spent €3.35 billion on support to Ukraine – an amount described on Thursday as “pathetic” and “reprehensible” by the editors of major Swedish and Danish newspapers, whose countries, according to the same data, have contributed €5.41 billion and €8.05 billion respectively.
“Norway is one of the few countries that has large amounts of money readily available, and we must therefore multiply our support for Ukraine immediately,” Liberal Party leader Guri Melby said on Saturday.
Norway’s support should be increased “significantly” and “fast”, Norway’s former Conservative prime minister, Erna Solberg, said in a statement. “The government can safely assume there is will in Parliament to give more,” she added.
The Liberal Party and the Socialist Left Party called for an emergency parliamentary session, but Euractiv understands they are now waiting for the government’s proposal instead.
Norway should spend 3% of GDP on defence, currently at around 2%, by 2030, Sylvi Listhaug, leader of the conservative Progress Party, Norway’s second-largest in recent polls, said today.
The leader of the Greens, who are currently polling at 2.7%, reiterated their proposal that Norway should pledge €85.5 billion to Ukraine.
“We will present a proposal to increase Ukraine support for parliament soon,” said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who will also attend tomorrow’s meeting of European leaders in London.
Time to tap the bank?
Since 2001, Norway has carefully followed a budgetary rule of spending no more than 4% and then 3% of its sovereign wealth fund each year. The rule was introduced by Jens Stoltenberg’s first cabinet with broad cross-party support. Known as a former NATO secretary general, Stoltenberg is now Norway’s finance minister, just as the rule comes under scrutiny.
The idea of using the fund more actively to support Ukraine and European defence spending is gaining ground in Norway.
One idea is to convert some €300 billion of the fund’s €450 billion in liquid bonds into European defence bonds, on the condition that the money is used exclusively to build Europe’s defence.
On Friday, Solberg said Norway must increase its use of “oil money” to improve the country’s defence. High-ranking members of her party previously called for stricter rules on how the money can be spent.
“Peace is more important than shortsightedness and inflation,” she said.
But Stoltenberg warned against tampering with the budget rule. “It is a dangerous idea to break the budgetary rule to give more money to Ukraine,” he said on 7 February.
Numbers?
Even without breaking the rule, Norway has deep pockets.
“We currently have a proposal in the Storting to increase support by 100 billion Norwegian kroner this year,” Sveinung Rotevatn, deputy chair and responsible for financial policy in the Liberal Party, told Euractiv.
For 2025, this would increase support for Ukraine from €3 billion to €11.5 billion.
Norway’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment further on how much it wants to increase aid, referring instead to Støre’s statement.
“It has become unequivocally clear that all of Europe must shift gears in our support and policy towards Ukraine and to ensure security in Europe,” said Rotevatn.
“All other policies we pursue assume that we are a free and independent country and that we have a functioning international world order,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide.
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