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Norway to hit ‘two percent’ NATO target ahead of schedule

Norway, whose neighbour Russia is now "more dangerous and more unpredictable", will reach NATO's two-percent spending target this year, two years earlier than expected, the prime minister said on Thursday.

Published: 14 March 2024 13:57 CET
Pictured is the Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Søre
Norway will hit the two percent target for NATO members. File phot: Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store addresses a joint press conference in 2024. (Photo by Wojtek Radwanski / AFP)

The 2024 defence budget, initially expected to be around 8.0 billion euros ($8.75 billion), will be revised upwards in the spring budget bill, Jonas Gahr Støre said after meeting opposition leaders.

The Labour prime minister did not provide any detailed figures but said his country would this year reach the target set for NATO members, under which they are expected to dedicate at least two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to military spending.

“Russia has no interest in a military conflict with a NATO member,” Store said. “But we will likely have to cope for a long time with a more dangerous and more unpredictable neighbour, Russia.”

The Scandinavian country was a founding member of NATO in 1949 and shares a 198-kilometre (123-mile) border with Russia in the Far North.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a backdrop, Norway’s minority government will also present a white paper on April 5th outlining its defence plans for 2025-2028.

“Norway poses a threat to no-one,” Støre stressed. “It’s not a plan (to provoke) a conflict, it’s a plan to avoid conflicts.”

NATO is currently holding Nordic Response exercises in northern Europe, involving around 20,000 soldiers.

They include Swedish troops taking part for the first time since Sweden formally joining the transatlantic military alliance last week.

On Wednesday, another Scandinavian country, Denmark, said it would raise its defence spending by $5.9 billion over five years to boost its military capacity, pushing it past NATO’s spending target from this year.

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SCHOOLS

Norway’s government reverses cuts to private and international schools

Proposed cuts to around 150 private schools offering both primary and secondary school education have been reversed by Norway's government.

Published: 7 May 2024 10:39 CEST
Norway’s government reverses cuts to private and international schools

The initial cuts were announced as part of the state budget for 2024 last autumn, and private schools told The Local that the cuts threatened their existence. 

Following backlash and protests last year, the government said it would tweak its plans, and on Tuesday, it announced the cuts would be reversed and a new subsidy scheme would be adopted. 

“We believe that the new model provides a better distribution between schools. Some schools were overcompensated, while other schools were undercompensated,” school policy spokesperson and MP for the Centre Party, Marit Knutsdatter Strand, told public broadcaster NRK. 

Independent schools in Norway will now receive 484 million kroner compared to the 515 million kroner the government planned to save by cutting subsidies. 

The announcement has been met with mixed reactions from some private schools. 

“We are happy that the government is correcting the cut from last autumn and that almost all the money is coming back. At the same time, this is money we thought we had and which was taken from us, so there is no violent cheering…” Helge Vatne, the acting general secretary of the Association of Christian Free Schools, told NRK. 

When the initial cuts were announced last year, the government said that it would no longer pay subsidies for both levels of education offered at private, independent, and international schools and that such institutions would instead receive only one grant. 

The extra subsidies have been paid out to compensate for the higher per-pupil running costs of private schools. 

In return, private schools must adopt certain parts of the Norwegian curriculum and cap fees. As a result, fees at schools that receive money from the government typically range between 24,500 kroner and 37,000 kroner a year.

However, not all schools accept government subsidies. These institutions, therefore, have more say over their curriculum and charge higher fees to compensate for the lack of government funding. 

READ MORE: Why some international schools in Norway are much more expensive than others

Some 30,000 children in Norway attend a private or international school, according to figures from the national data agency Statistics Norway. 

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