Oslo — Norway will more than double its financial pledge to Ukraine this year while also hiking its own defence spending, the prime minister said on Thursday, declaring the Nordic country faced its most serious security situation for 80 years.
Norway, home to the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund with assets of $1.8-trillion, has enjoyed soaring income from gas sales to Europe as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and faces pressure at home and abroad to increase its aid.
The government and opposition leaders agreed on Thursday to raise this year’s Ukraine funding to 85-billion kroner ($7.83bn), higher than a planned 35-billion kroner agreed in November, Labour Party Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said.
Stoere’s move marks the latest example of a European country scrambling to boost defence spending and support for Ukraine after President Donald Trump froze US military aid to Kyiv and fuelled doubts about its commitment to European Nato allies.
It comes on the same day as EU members, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in attendance, are meeting in Brussels to pledge more money to Ukraine and towards their own defence. Norway is not in the EU but is part of Nato.
The Nordic nation now faces “the most serious security situation for our country since World War 2”, Stoere said in an address to parliament earlier on Thursday.
He said he would come back to parliament later time with revised defence spending plans.
In recent days Norwegian politicians have been debating how much more Oslo should support Ukraine, given the drop in US support and that Norway’s neighbours such as Sweden and Denmark have so far made bigger donations.
Norway’s opposition Conservative Party supported the increase, and said further increases could be considered later this year.
‘Right thing to do’
In the parliament’s gallery, a delegation of six Ukrainian MPs listened to Stoere’s address.
One of them, Volodymyr Kabachenko from the opposition Batkivshchyna party, said he welcomed Norway’s decision and said the country could do more, noting it was the only European nation that could finance aid with its money rather than debt.
“If Norway wants to secure the lives of its own citizens ... the only right thing to do is to provide Ukraine with money and we will be fighting on behalf of Ukraine, Europe and Norway,” Kabachenko said.
In 2023 alone, inflows to Norway’s wealth fund from oil and gas revenues surged to 1.1-trillion kroner, nearly three times the previous record set in 2008.
Reuters
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