Frp wishes to use oil billions to remove toll stations

Road Tolls. Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB scanpix

The Progress Party wishes to use oil billions to remove toll stations

A unanimous Progress Party National Assembly supports Carl I. Hagen’s proposal to use oil billions to erase road toll debt. Party Leader Siv Jensen warns against unrealistic expectations.


The Progress Party’s National Assembly unanimously agrees with former Progress Party Leader Carl I. Hagen’s personal proposal to spend billions from the proceeds of the Norwegian oil fund to eradicate toll stations from Norway.

In the proposal, Hagen shows that on Friday, it was made known that the oil fund in the first quarter of this year has a profit of NOK 738 billion. He suggests using some of those proceeds to clear the debt of both existing and planned projects that are financed by road tolls.

These costs are estimated to be around NOK 100 billion. There is, however,  a lot of uncertainty regarding it. The proposal, therefore, states that one must use the phrase «whatever it takes» to eradicate the debt.

Siv Jensen advarer

Party leader Siv Jensen went to the pulpit towards the end of a long and dedicated road toll debate. She states that the proposal from Hagen is good, old Progress Party policy, which she basically supports. Jensen, however, warns the party against unrealistic expectations.

“There are limits to what we can achieve. We must work on the proposals we believe are realistic to achieve, ”Jensen continues – with reference to the well-known opposition to using oil money among several of the party’s government partners.

“I believe that it is completely unrealistic to get the other parties to agree to this,” the party leader tells NTB after the debate.

Hagen, on the other hand, believes that the proposal does not create unrealistic expectations either in the party or among the voters:

”No, this is the view and proposal of the Progress Party. We probably put it to the other parties, then they’ll vote it down or say yes. However, then everyone knows that the Progress Party has launched a straightforward, simple solution, but the other parties said no,” Hagen tells NTB.

As the increasing toll rebellion spreads across Norway, Hagen believes that it may be possible to get the other parties in on the proposal.

“We must say to the other parties: There is now a rebellion underway in Norway. Look at the yellow vests of France. This uprising is also growing here, we risk losing a stable social system,” Hagen stated during a session on transport on Saturday.

 

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No to the zero-growth goal

The National Assembly further adopts a number of other proposals to address the battle against the anti-tolls election lists, which is stealing many voters from them, particularly in southwestern Norway.

The latest poll in Bergen shows that FNB currently is the second largest party there.

FNB wishes, among other things, an end to that motorists must finance public transport and bicycle roads. Furthermore, it wishes to scrap the current goal of zero growth in private vehicle traffic in urban areas. FNB proposes to replace it with a clean emission target.

The party will also have a review and adjustment of the current urban growth and adopted road toll packages to ensure that the most affordable solutions are chosen instead.

Minister of Transport, Jon Georg Dale, says he and the party are going to work hard to get the road tolls opponents to return to the Progress Party.

In a leak from the revised national budget, Siv Jensen on Friday announced that the government shall spend NOK 200 million this year on building down road toll stations and paying out debt.

“Which road toll stations will be built down, will be announced when the revised budget is presented,” Dale concludes.


© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
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