On Wednesday, the Conservative parliamentary group was gathered for its weekly, and currently digital, meeting.
There, the decision to let the Storting’s elected representatives and members of the government take the lead in the national vaccine queue this week was strongly criticized.
TV 2 has spoken to several of the meeting participants. According to the sources, about half of the meeting participants spoke, and a clear predominance of these criticized the Minister of Health Bent Høie and the government’s handling.
A lot of criticism
Among them were Storting President Tone Wilhelmsen Trøen, parliamentary leader Trond Helleland, the leader of the Conservative women’s network Guro Angell Gimse and the Storting representatives Helge Orten and Stefan Heggelund.
One of the strongest critics in the meeting was health policy spokesman Sveinung Stensland. Stensland also distinguished himself this week by going clear and saying that he would accept the offer from the government to be allowed to lead the queue.
– PARLIAMENT VACCINATED: Conservative health policy spokesman, Storting representative Sveinung Stensland, was vaccinated as part of the government’s vaccine program for socially critical key personnel at Akershus Fortress on Wednesday morning. Photo: Gorm Kallestad
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According to TV 2’s sources, Stensland and several other Conservative parliamentary representatives expressed that they thought they were stabbed in the back by Høie, after they had been public and defended that they themselves accepted the vaccine while the country’s leading health politicians do not think it is necessary to emergency vaccine him.
– I have never commented from group meetings, and I will not do that in the future, Stensland says to TV 2.
Høie rejected the criticism
Both Minister of Justice and Emergency Management Monica Mæland and Bent Høie themselves were present at the meeting and spoke. In his post, Bent Høie rejected all criticism of his own vaccine choice and argued that he had to insist that he should be vaccinated in his home municipality, regardless of the government’s own emergency preparedness assessment.
According to TV 2, Prime Minister Erna Solberg will not have participated in the meeting during the debate because she was on a flight. However, TV 2 spoke with Solberg on Thursday. Then she says this about Høie’s controversial no to the vaccine:
– Why is Bent Høie exempt from the requirement for emergency preparedness, he does not want to be vaccinated now?
– Now TV2 has asked me about it before and I have answered it before. All vaccinations in Norway are voluntary. He is 50 years old and he will soon get the vaccine in his municipality and he has then chosen to stand by what he has said all along. That he will be vaccinated in his turn and it is not long before. He actually turned fifty at the beginning of May and must probably be considered an adult man eventually, says Solberg.
– How is the relationship between Monica Mæland and Bent Høie now?
– We have very good conditions in the government in all areas, but it is so fundamental in Norway that vaccination is voluntary, says the Prime Minister.
The debate lasted about an hour and the mood is described as bad by TV 2’s sources. Many were annoyed, but some were also upset because they perceived that the question of whether they as parliamentary representatives were socially critical or had not been privatized.
It was last week that Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s government decided that up to 500 people defined as socially critical key personnel should be given priority for vaccination this week. This includes all the Storting’s 169 representatives, members of the government, the Supreme Court, the Royal House and the management of Nav and the National Institute of Public Health.
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