It is escalating between the government comrades.
Compulsory merged municipalities and county municipalities can decide on dissolution by 1 March 2022.
This was one of the Center Party’s most important battles before the election and an important breakthrough in the Hurdal platform.
Also read: The Labor Party can stop the dissolution of Viken
– Not met anyone who says it has gotten worse
Labor politicians in the Inland, Viken, Vestfold and Telemark are now putting their foot down for this, one of them is Porsgrunn mayor Robin Martin Kåss (Labor).
– I have not met anyone who says the services have deteriorated after the merger, Kåss says to Nettavisen.
That he can now be resolved within a month within a month, he strongly warns against:
– This will affect many jobs and put important projects on hold.
– Did you not go to the polls to dissolve the county?
– No. We went to the polls to move services closer to people. This proposal provides a weakened offer to our citizens, says Kåss.
Also read: This is what the newspapers write about Norwegian politics on Tuesday 18 January
– Intimidation propaganda
Aps opposition annoys the Center Party (Sp).
– Labor spreads scare propaganda about the consequences of a county dissolution, thundered Seljord mayor (Q) Beate Marie Dahl Eide in Dagsrevyen on Monday.
– It is special that many Labor politicians are fighting to keep blue-blue politics when we have been given government power to give the people a new course. It is about how we build a society, that power should be close to the people, she said.
Also read: The Labor Party can stop the dissolution of Viken
– Do you and your colleagues run scare propaganda, Kåss?
– No, by no means! Here we must get the facts on the drill. This is a bad solution, which is threaded down over our heads after a few weeks of team meetings.
Also read: Støre’s 100-day plan: Struggling to fulfill the promises
– Then there can be a lot of inventions
Kåss fears that a new solution will paralyze parts of the counties for four new years.
– Now we have spent a long time merging the counties, we will then go into two new years “in limbo” because the county municipality is in dissolution, and then spend two new years on the construction, he asks.
– And then a possible new government can change that again?
– Yes, then they can come up with new inventions.
Kåss is mildly frustrated and says that a lot of uncertainty is created around important societal functions such as the police district, the state administrator and the public prosecutor’s office.
– Chaotic
– Do you want to say this is as chaotic as it may sound?
– Yes! If this is implemented, we must be compensated financially, both in the form of jobs and to compensate for a damaged business community, Kåss believes.
– The Center Party has become the hardest nut to crack here, their government partner. How do you experience it?
– I have been elected by the inhabitants of Porsgrunn, not by the government, says the former state secretary to the then Minister of Health – now Prime Minister – Jonas G. Støre.
– Should think more about
– They should probably think a little more about when they set the deadline for March 1:
– Two years in the sign of the pandemic, I think it is too scarce to pass judgment on the new county municipalities, but now that process is underway, he states.
– What is your guess about the outcome on 15 February?
– Hard to say, I think it will be even and that Vestfold has the most to gain from today’s proposal, so maybe they are “for”, he says.
For Viken’s part, it is likely that the Labor Party in Østfold and Buskerud are in favor, while Akershus is against.
The new county municipalities will re-emerge as separate county municipalities from 1 January 2024 after separate elections in the autumn of 2023.
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