Solberg will answer about Sandberg

Labour Part Leader, Jonas Støre (centre) wonders if Prime Minister Solberg has control of "the loose cannon on deck", Minister of Fisheries, Per Sandberg (Progress Party). Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Conservatives) will answer on Monday. Photo: regjeringen.no /Pixabay

Solberg will answer about Sandberg on Monday

Haphazard, fringed and homemade, says the opposition about Minister of Fisheries, Per Sandberg (Progress Party). Now everyone is waiting for the Prime Minister’s response.

 

Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Conservatives) did not wish to make a statement on Friday but tells NRK that she will provide her reply on Monday.

Labour leader Jonas Gahr Støre, leader of Red, Bjørnar Moxnes and the Christian Democrat’s representative in the constitution and control committee, Hans Fredrik Grøvan, has asked the Prime Minister a number of questions regarding Sandberg’s controversial holiday in Iran.

Questions of a possible vote of no confidence after the Minister of Fisheries broke the safety guidelines, bringing his work phone along on the trip to a country led by an oppressive regime, is still stonewalled with that the assessment is on the Prime Minister’s table.

Problem for Solberg

Moxnes believes that many in the Parliament obviously will have problems with Sandberg «having put his own homemade security rules together».

– But first and foremost, it should pose a problem for the Prime Minister that we have a Cabinet Minister with such a haphazard approach to security, he tells to the Political Quarter Magazine on NRK.

Prime Minister Solberg has received several written questions from various political parties on the Storting on the matter. The answers will be important to determine the next move from the Parliament.

Grøvan mentions Sandberg’s dealings with safety routines as being «very frayed».

– If we do not get a good explanation, this may very well end up in the Control and Constitution Committee, he tells NRK.

Several unanswered questions

Støre says there are a number of unanswered questions in the matter.

– The Prime Minister says that everybody can make mistakes, but we can not afford mistakes when it comes to the security of the nation, says the Labour leader. Støre has also wondered if Solberg is in control of Sandberg at all.

Sandberg’s meeting with the press in Mandal Thursday has led to further questions. Sandberg then stated that he had good reasons not to inform the Prime Minister’s office about the Iran trip ahead of time, but refused to answer what these reasons might be.

Security is all important

The Minister of Fisheries has been criticized for taking part in the celebration of Iran’s national day under the auspices of the country’s embassy in Norway. This week, it was confirmed that Sandberg participated in the celebration by virtue of being a Cabinet Minister. The National day is celebrated to commemorate the rise to power of the Ayatollahs in Iran.

The criticisms are about everything from the fact that Sandberg has acted as a «self-styled Minister of Foreign Affairs» to him by doing this has contributed to legitimising a very brutal regime. At the same time, they emphasize that the various breaches of safety guidelines are much more serious.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today