Admits That the Norwegian Arctic Policy Has Not Worked

On Wednesday, the Norwegian Conservative Party’s new leadership, leader Ine Eriksen Søreide, deputy leader Henrik Asheim, and second deputy leader Ola Svenneby, invited members to a party meeting in Kirkenes on the border to Russia in Northern Norway, as part of the party’s 'listening tour.'

Conservative politicians from across Finnmark county showed up with pressing questions about power, geopolitics, schools, healthcare, preparedness and industry. To name just a few.

"The world is changing, with great-power rivalry and an increased focus on security policy," said leader Søreide when opening the meeting.

"In that context, a strong local business sector is important for local preparedness."

Not good enough

A strong local business sector is exactly what the Mayor of Sør-Varanger municipality, Magnus Mæland (Conservative), wants. During a debate the day before, he and the mayors of Berlevåg and Hammerfest municipalities called for more action from those in power in the south.

Ine Eriksen Søreide’s response is that the development in Finnmark is moving too slowly.

"I fully understand that Statnett’s message was perceived as brutal in the North," she says.

It is Statnett that builds, owns and operates the central power grid in Norway.

Not long ago, Statnett announced that it is introducing a temporary halt to new electricity consumption above five megawatts north of Svartisen in Nordland, Northern Norway.

Lacking a sense of urgency

"The main problem is that not enough power is being produced, or too little power is being prioritized for essential industries and defense in Finnmark. We do not have all the answers, but something has to be done to increase the pace," says Søreide.

She believes that Norway lacks a sense of urgency in both strengthening the Armed Forces and expanding power and energy in the North, which is why progress is so slow.

Yet, Magnus Mæland needs a more elaborate answer from the leader.

"We must be able to say that the High North policy has not worked. There is net outmigration in Finnmark and Nordland counties. The action zone, as it is, has not worked. We must acknowledge that, and create a new policy together."

"If we are so important to the nation of Norway, a strategic focal point in the middle of the Russian bastion defense, that must be demonstrated through concrete actions," says Mæland.

The action zone includes state financial measures to help both individuals and businesses in the counties of Finnmark and Northern Troms.

The benefits for individuals living in the zone are cancellation of student loans, free childcare, lower income tax, a special deduction in personal income, and exemption from electricity tax.

Tax cuts are not enough

However, these measures have not worked as intended. An analysis by the Institute of Transport Economics shows that tax cuts alone are not enough to prevent outmigration from the action zone.

"Many people in Nordland feel that too. We must change our policy. And we cannot just ask for more money, but be willing to break a few eggs to make that omelet," says Mæland.

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The party leader agrees that the High North policy is not working as intended.

 "I think all parties have good intentions, but circumstances have led to it not working as planned, and especially not for the security policy situation we are in now. We must use the room for action offered by the new opportunities with Sweden and Finland, but also, to a much greater extent, acknowledge that business development and preparedness are clearly linked, especially in the Arctic," says Søreide.

"I am very glad that you are willing to break a few eggs. If the answer is more money, then what is the question? We must work together to find measures that actually work, because I do not think it is much of a success if we just sit and make it up ourselves," says Søreide to Mæland.

Reversing the negative demographic trend is something no government has managed to achieve.

"We will probably run out of people before we run out of money," says Søreide dryly.

Svalbard tax

Second deputy leader Ola Svenneby no longer believes it is enough that people have jobs and housing. They need a life outside that as well.

"There must be urban amenities, which is also about place development. You will not get more people to move to remote areas without culture, education, and healthcare services nearby. There is no contradiction between having dispersed settlement and strong regional centers, and that is something we must continue to build on," says Svenneby.

One of the questions from the audience concerned tax relief in Northern Norway, precisely as a measure to get people to move northward. And, not least, to stay there.

A Finnmark tax based on the Svalbard model has previously been proposed at the Conservative Party’s national convention. In Svalbard, a special scheme with lower income tax has been introduced.

Henrik Asheim’s advice is to have a dialogue about the tax system in Northern Norway, rather than copying the Svalbard tax system.

"Instead of falling in love with the Svalbard tax specifically, we should develop policy around how we can use the tax system together with other measures to ensure that more people move here and stay here."

"I am very open to using policy and additional funding, but at the Conservative Party’s national convention, the majority of delegates do not come from Finnmark. So the proposal quickly falls through. What we need to discuss is how we can design the action zone in a better way, and we are happy to do that together with local politicians," says Asheim.

New opportunities

Asheim, like Søreide, says that new opportunities have opened up after Sweden and Finland joined NATO.

"This means that we can think completely differently about everything from infrastructure and the economy to preparedness, in a way we could not just a couple of years ago. It is a window of opportunity that we actually have to use and think wisely about," says the deputy leader of the Conservative Party.

One listener wants an open debate on preparedness and, not least, food security. If the E6 road closes, it will not take long before the shops are empty.

"In the North in particular, the threat landscape is now so different that it is not sufficient to think about preparedness for the traditional war situation where the enemy comes rolling across the border. Today’s threat landscape is more than that, and that is where individual preparedness also clearly comes into play," says Ine Eriksen Søreide.

At the same time, she downplays the importance of bomb shelters, which are in short supply in Finnmark, as in the rest of Norway.

"Remember that if something happens, people are supposed to go to work, right? They are not supposed to go into shelters, but to keep society running. The Ukrainian ambassador spoke about this at the Kirkenes Conference today, emphasizing that having a society that continues to function if war strikes is immensely important."

"But we must think about civil preparedness in a different way today than we did just ten years ago. Assessments conducted only a few years ago must be revisited."

Søreide is also a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, which she chaired until she became leader of the Conservative Party.

Cutting the blood bank

The county mayor of Finnmark, Hans-Jakob Bønå (Conservative), reacts to the fact that the Northern Norway Regional Health Authority is discontinuing the scheme of “mobile blood banks” in Alta, Vadsø, and Berlevåg from August 1st, 2026.

These blood banks are part of a pilot project in which local emergency blood donors could be called in to the out-of-hours medical service to donate blood within 30 minutes in the event of life-threatening bleeding and over long distances.

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"Now there is suddenly an expectation that people should spend two days traveling to the hospital. We only have two hospitals, so this really means that at a time when preparedness and security are supposed to be important, we are actually cutting preparedness and security measures," says Bønå.

The Conservative Party leadership has no answer to this.

But Bønå also wants to address the PSO routes (public service obligation) in the North. These are regional air routes that the Norwegian state purchases and subsidizes to ensure that districts with a weak customer base have regular and accessible air service.

"The PSO routes are like a straitjacket we are being forced into, where we are expected to accommodate Widerøe’s flights, while ending up with poorer and poorer services. No politicians in Norway spend as much time traveling as I do. And no one sits at airports as long as I do. We should address the fact that Widerøe's fleet is more than 30 years old. They have veteran aircraft for which parts are no longer being produced," says Bønå.

He adds that the aircraft will be phased out within ten years.

"What then? Should we expand all the short-runway airports or centralize around a few larger airports? Or reshuffle the airport structures around Northern Norway a little?"

Henrik Asheim agrees that the Widerøe fleet is quite old.

"They will have to be retired over time and replaced by other aircraft that can land on the short-runway network. The other issue is a much bigger discussion, about whether some airports should be closed and longer runways built. I do not think that is something we should figure out on our own, but discuss with Northern Norway," says Asheim.

Søreide says that with aircraft that old, it eventually becomes a case of 30,000 spare parts flying in formation.

"It will become difficult to obtain spare parts, and Widerøe’s aircraft depend on both operational safety and flying in harsh weather conditions that cause them to wear more than elsewhere."

Ashamed

Hans-Jakob Bønå also agrees that the expansion of the power grid and power production is progressing too slowly in Finnmark.

"We have a National Transport Plan that I am ashamed of. It is embarrassing that Finnmark has been allocated 0.4 percent in the transport plan. We therefore have three projects over a twelve-year period. E45 Kløfta in Alta, National Road 94 into Hammerfest, and the Strømmen bridge to Kirkenes, which, just to be on the safe side, is placed at the very end of the period, and which is currently one-way traffic controlled by lights," says the frustrated county mayor.

"In light of the fact that 1.5 percent of Norway’s contribution of five percent of gross domestic product is to be spent on civilian measures that support defense capability, it should be possible to achieve more."

Drone wall

He then makes an appeal to consider a so-called “drone wall” on the border with Russia, which is a strengthened defense against drone attacks, including by developing new technology to detect them more quickly. The EU has presented an action plan for such a drone wall.

"It could function as a continuation from Finland and up along our border with Russia. And it could bring both innovation and development, as well as production and testing of drones, here in Finnmark. Because there is nowhere else in Norway that has as good training opportunities as here," says Bønå.

Søreide says there is talk at the central level of a major investment in drones.

"In addition to expertise, capacity, and development. This is something we are pushing hard for as part of the restructuring of the Long-Term Plan for the Armed Forces, which we are currently working on. It is going too slowly, and there is no overall governance of this in the Armed Forces".

"I do not believe in establishing a separate branch of defense for drone defense. This must be integrated into all branches of defense that are to operate together."

"If Norway were attacked, we would not be fighting the same war as Ukraine. This would be something entirely different, which means we cannot replace all defense with drones. But drones are an extremely important supplement to what we do today," says Søreide.