Speculation was flying in Oslo on Wednesday after news broke that King Harald V, Crown Prince Haakon and at least half of Norway’s government ministers met in an extraordinary Council of State at the Royal Palace. At issue was a classified matter that no one will talk about.
The Royal Palace in Oslo is where the Council of State is held on Fridays, not on a Wednesday. PHOTO: NewsinEnglish.no/Morten Møst
The Council of State is normally held every Friday at 11am. They’re largely ceremonial meetings at which the monarch formally approves government personnel appointments and various matters as head of state.
Newspaper VG was first to report the extraordinary session, held without Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. He was in Stockholm on Wednesday after a breakfast meeting at his residence with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. He was in Norway to visit NATO winter exercises up north.
Nor were either Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide or Defense Minister Tore O Sandvik at the Council of State. Both of them were escorting Rutte to the NATO exercises in Troms.
That created a need to bring in as many other government ministers as possible. Commentators including Lars Nehru Sand at state broadcaster NRK called that highly unusual. It’s also unusual that a Council of State would be called and carried out as quickly as it was on Wednesday. Handling the classified matter on the agenda apparently couldn’t wait until Friday, Sand noted, nor would a meeting of the government or the Parliament’s foreign relations committee suffice.
“That a matter is so secret that it can only be handled with the king at a Council of State raises extra interest around it,” Sand said.
Anne Kristin Hjukse, communications chief at the prime minister’s office, confirmed the meeting but couldn’t reveal its agenda. “I can’t comment on a case that’s classified under national security law,” she told NRK. “This time there was a need to handle it before the next planned Council of State, so therefore this one was held today.” There would be no official report from the meeting either, like there usually is.
Such meetings often involve national security and defense. Neither the defense ministry, the defense department’s operational headquarters in Bodø or the police security agency PST would comment either, with a PST spokesman saying the agency had no information on the concrete agenda for the meeting.
Newspaper VG reported that the extradinary session was not tied to all the turbulence within the royal family itself. Crown Princess Mette-Marit hasn’t made a public appearance since late January, and still refuses to comment on her relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Her son Marius Borg Høiby was still in court on Wednesday over 39 counts of rape, violence and other criminal offenses. Other royal family members have been keeping a low profile with most of the royal burden falling on Crown Prince Haakon, who has maintained a busy schedule and refused earlier this week to comment further on the controversy swirling around his wife.
At least half of all government ministers need to be present at a Council of State in order for it to be able to make decisions. Enough were rounded up and present at Wednesday’s meeting.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund