Norway has filed a complaint against Jagland to the Council of Europe

Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland.Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB scanpix

Norway has filed a complaint against Jagland to the Council of Europe

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has submitted a formal complaint on Thorbjørn Jagland to the Council of Europe following a Facebook post on Norwegian policy. This has been confirmed by UD’s communications manager Frode O. Andersen to NRK.

 

The background is a Facebook post where Jagland criticizes what he thinks is a passive Norwegian attitude to the behaviour of the police during the demonstrations in Barcelona.

– Jagland claimed that the UD mentioned the police methods in Spain as an internal matter. This was wrong and completely misleading from what was really said, says Andersen.

He adds that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (UD) commented directly on Jagland’s Facebook page and that the same message was then formally conveyed via Norway’s delegation to the Council of Europe.

Jagland is General Secretary of the Council of Europe, and has formerly not only been Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, but even the leader of the Nobel Prize committee. As an active politician he represented the Norwegian Labour Party (AP).

He told NRK, via Facebook, that he has no comment to that the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has delivered a formal complaint concerning him.

“I am, according to the European Convention on Human Rights, independent of any Government and have sworn to that,” explains Jagland.

The question remains why he has singled out Norway in his criticism.

 

©  NTB Scanpix / Norway Today