NEWS

Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg is in her most difficult political battle as she struggles to get her support parties to back the minority government’s spending plan ahead of next year’s election.

The Liberal Party has so far declined to support the 2017 plan, demanding deeper reductions in climate gas emissions and balking at a proposal to cut fees for motorists. The two-party government is facing a “challenging” parliamentary situation but will keep on talking until there’s a budget in place, Solberg said at a gathering of her Conservative Party in Oslo on Monday.

“It’s demanding because we have challenges in the Norwegian economy,” she said. “We have challenges internationally. We also face an election, which means there’s a lot of tension among the political parties.”

To read more on Norway’s oil-fueled spending, click here

Solberg has had tough negotiations over the past years in getting her budgets passed, but this year proved particularly intransigent because all parties are trying to build support ahead of the election in September next year.

The discord raises the political stakes in the weeks ahead and speculation has grown that the government, which depends on backing from the Liberals or Christian Democrats for a parliamentary majority, could step down after three years in power. Norway doesn’t have snap elections, so a new government will need to be formed within the current parliamentary make up. The biggest group in parliament is the opposition Labor Party.