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POLITICS

Norway’s biggest cities set for leadership shakeup after local elections

Conservative Party-led city councils are likely to be formed in Oslo, Bergen, and Stavanger while things hang in the balance in Trondheim after the local elections in Norway on Monday.

Pictured is Bryggen in Bergen.
A number of new Conservative-led city councils will be formed in a number of Norway's biggest cities. Pictured is Bryggen in Bergen. Photo by Xiaoyang Ou on Unsplash

The Conservative Party in Oslo will begin talks with other parties on Tuesday morning after performing strongly in the local elections on Monday.

A right-wing bloc of the Conservatives, the Liberal Party, the Progress Party and the Christian Democratic Party secured a majority of 31 seats in the capital, Monday night’s results revealed.

Meanwhile, the parties that had run Oslo City Council for the previous four years, the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Green Party, only managed to secure 23 seats.

How the Conservative-led city council will look has yet to be finalised, and as the Liberal Party has said, it is “problematic and unlikely” that they sit on the same city council as the hard-right Progress Party. The Progress Party and Green Party also appear unwilling to work with one another.

It means a minority local government will again be in charge of the Oslo City Council. Current city council leader Raymond Johansen had previously said he will call time on his political career if he loses the election.

While a Conservative-led city council looks the most likely outcome, and their mayoral candidate, Eirik Lae Solberg, declared an election victory in the early hours of Tuesday, the new city council will not be formed until later in the autumn.

The Labour Party sunk to its lowest share of a vote in any local or national elections in Bergen since 1945. While it means the Conservative Party will likely take over the city council, it is unsure which parties it will rely on to do so.

Combined with the Progress Party, the Liberal Party and Christian Democratic Party, the Conservatives would have 31 seats. This is still three short of the number required to form a majority. Therefore, the party will be required to sit at the negotiating table to get the majority.

The Conservative Party candidate for city council leadership, Christine Meyer, may have to offer to scrap the controversial extension to Bergen’s light rail service in order to try and get the required majority.

This is because some of the parties she may have to work with are opposed to the extension of the Bybanen service, meaning the debate about the scope of expansion may continue for years to come.

Current city council leader Rune Bakervik said to public broadcaster NRK on Tuesday morning that his Labour-led council would step down.

In Trondheim, the results were still neck and neck on Tuesday morning.

Neither the Conservative, Knut Ranum, nor Labour, Emil Raaen, candidates had declared an election victory at the time of publication.

Labour was currently closest, with the party, the Socialist Left Party, Red Party, Green Party and Centre Party combining for a majority of 34 seats.

Playing the role of kingmaker is the Centre Party, which refuses to work with the Red Party.

Should the Centre Party instead choose to support a right-wing bloc, then the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Christian Democratic Party, the Pensioners Party, the Industry and Business Party and the Progress would be able to secure a majority if all decided to work together with the Centre party.

In Kristiansand, a Conservative-led bloc consisting of the Progress Party, Christian Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and Centre Party was set to take over. A Labour-led bloc will need to invite others parties to remain in power in Tromsø. and in Stavanger there is a right-wing majority. 

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POLITICS

How Norway’s 2025 budget will impact foreign residents

Norway’s government won’t unveil its budget for another few weeks, but several proposals, such as income tax cuts, have already been made public. Here's how foreign residents in Norway will be affected.

How Norway's 2025 budget will impact foreign residents

Norway’s budget for 2025 will be unveiled on October 7th. It is the last budget the current government will present before the general election next year.

Tax cuts

Finance minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said this summer that those on ordinary incomes would pay less income tax in 2025. How much income tax will be cut is currently unknown.

Tax residents of Norway currently pay a flat tax rate of 22 percent, and then a further “bracket tax” based on how much they earn. For example, those who earn up to 670,000 kroner per year pay a four percent bracket tax, while those making between 670,001 and 937,900 kroner pay a 13.6 percent bracket tax.

READ ALSO: How does Norway’s bracket tax for income work?

Norway’s tax card system would also be tweaked to benefit those with part-time jobs. Next year, you can earn up to 100,000 before paying tax. This could benefit foreign students in Norway.

Finances

The government will continue its electric subsidy for households next year. The government announced its intention to continue the policy this spring.

Currently, the state covers 90 percent of the electricity price above 73 øre per kWh – or 91.25 øre including VAT.

Residents of Norway’s 212 least central municipalities will have 25,000 kroner of their student loans written off per year from 2026.

Those in Finnmark and Nord-Troms will have their loans written off at a rate of 60,000 kroner a year.

READ MORE: The incentives to attract people to northern Norway

Crime

The government will spend an extra 2.8 billion kroner on fighting crime. Of this, 2.4 billion kroner will go directly to beefing up the number of police officers in Norway. Some 90 million kroner would be put towards cracking down on financial crime.

Furthermore, 405 million kroner would also be spent on fighting youth crime, by creating a fast track court for young offenders and creating more juvenile detention places.

Travel changes

Up to 2.9 billion kroner extra spending will go into maintaining Norway’s rail infrastructure. Signal and track failures have been a constant source of delays in east Norway, where services regularly struggle with punctuality.

Over 12 billion kroner will be spent on Norway’s rail system.

Norway could finally reveal more details on its proposed tourist tax. The country’s industry minister, Cecilie Myrseth, has previously said that a proposal would be tabled this autumn.

The minister didn’t say whether this would be related to the raft of proposals included in the budget.

A potential tourist tax has long been promised by the current government as part of the Hurdal Agreement it was formed on in 2021.

As part of its budget cooperation with the Socialist Left Party, the government will be required to assess whether a subsidy scheme should be introduced for long-distance bus travel in Norway.

Bus routes without an alternative, such as train, could be subsidised under the scheme.

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