Government and budget parties still locked in talks, new study reveals lack of healthy eating in Nordics, and Tesla maintaining strong sales are among the lead stories in Norway this Tuesday.
Talks with rebel budget parties to continue
The Labour government will today continue talks with the Green and SV parties with the hope of securing their backing for the 2026 budget.
The budget does not currently have a majority after the two parties left the agreement over the weekend. The issue could potentially result in the government resigning if a solution is not found by the end of the week.
EXPLAINER: What is going on with Norway’s 2026 budget negotiations?
The Greens (MDG) and SV took part in talks yesterday with Labour’s parliamentary leader Tonje Brenna.
The budget spending is now fixed following an agreement that was made between Labour and two other parties ahead of a deadline on Sunday. That means the aim of the talks is to agree on an additional text that can be adopted together with the budget, broadcaster NRK notes.
MDG wants a clear plan for phasing out the oil industry while SV has objected to wording related to the sovereign wealth fund’s investments in Israel, according to NRK’s sources.
“We’re approaching a deadline with a budget on the table that essentially means we would have helped negotiate an outcome where emissions will be higher than they otherwise would have been,” MDG leader Arild Hermstad told NRK on its Politisk kvarter programme.
“But this is an issue of such importance to our voters and our party that we cannot support that,” he added.
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Nordic countries moving less and putting on weight
Residents of the Nordic countries ‒ Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland ‒ are eating more meat and less fruit and veg, moving less and getting heavier, a new report on lifestyles in the region has shown.
The report, by the Nordic Council of Ministers, has shown that 56 percent of adults and around 20 percent of children in the Nordic region are overweight or obese.
“We’re on our way to becoming a sedentary and overweight population,” said Sisse Fagt, senior adviser at Technical University of Denmark, who led the work on the report.
The results showed that we eat more red meat and sweetened products than we did ten years ago, while also eating less fruit, vegetables and wholewheat products. Fagt said that the drop in consumption of fruit and vegetables surprised her, adding that merely telling people what to eat does not appear to be sufficient.
“It needs to be easier to make healthy choices, maybe that could be something like changing the tax rate on different products,” she said.
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Tesla sets sales records in Norway
Tesla has sold more cars in Norway in 11 months than any other brand in a whole year, according to statistics published on Monday reported by AFP.
That is in contrast to the rest of Europe where the electric car brand run by Elon Musk has faced headwinds.
In a country ahead of the pack in the adoption of electric vehicles, Tesla sales have surged by 34.6 percent since the beginning of the year, compared to the same period last year, according to the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV).
Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 were the two best-selling vehicles last month across all brands.
By comparison, its sales in the European Union dropped by 39.2 percent in the first 10 months of the year, and by 48 percent year-on-year in October, according to the latest statistics from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).