Drawing: Finn Graff
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DEBATE
Nicolai Tangen is stopped by the Norwegian ideal of equality. Not because he is rich, but because rules are absolute and not a relative size.
External comments: This is a debate article. Analysis and position are the writer’s own.
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It has been two horrible press conferences yesterday. One with Petter Northug, and one with central bank governor Øystein Olsen and Minister of Finance Jan Tore Sanner. In the first we saw a beaten man in what he himself called “a zero point in life.” In the other we saw a beaten man who was at the zero point of his career.
Øystein Olsen, the central bank governor who was brought in after glorious merits in the Ministry of Finance and Statistics Norway, today received a political overhaul of the rare.
First by a joint finance committee in the Storting, and then by a very clear Minister of Finance Jan Tore Sanner.
He was given this as head of an institution, Norges Bank, to which politicians usually try to keep a certain distance in order to safeguard the bank’s independence as far as possible.
Olsen has been responsible for a messy hiring process in which Norges Bank broke the Public Access to Information Act. He has also been responsible for making the employment agreement, which a united political Norway now believes violates Norges Bank’s own ethical regulations.
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Olsen’s humiliation is so strong that it is apt to evoke sympathy and compassion. (One should perhaps be careful about flagging, at least if we are to learn from the debate around the aforementioned Northug.)
Now rests a huge responsibility for Olsen and the rest of the Executive Board of Norges Bank. They will meet for an extraordinary board meeting on Monday to find out if they have any “room for maneuver”, as Olsen called it today, to find a solution. That solution must respond to the remarks and remarks made by the Storting’s Finance Committee today. They were crystal clear, and it’s just as well to quote the two most important in their entirety:
* The head of NBIM may not have any ownership or interests that create or may appear to create conflicts of interest that are suitable for weakening the trust and reputation of Norges Bank, in accordance with the bank’s own ethical principles for employees.
* The head of NBIM may not have ownership or interests that weaken or may weaken the GPFG’s work with tax and transparency
In other words: Tangen cannot have holdings in the hedge fund in London that he has built up, Ako Capital. He probably also cannot have ownership interests in companies in so-called tax havens.
– Follows eagerly and intensely
He must do as the previous oil fund manager, Yngve Slyngstad. He must have all his investments in Norway. The reason for this is simple, and lies in the Petroleum Fund’s real name: the Government Pension Fund abroad. The fund has its investments abroad, and then the manager of the fund cannot be invested in the same place.
The “room for maneuver” Øystein Olsen wants to investigate is in reality therefore whether Nicolai Tangen agrees to this solution.
Some new ones solutions with several intermediaries, strengthening compliance departments or the like, Norges Bank’s Executive Board can probably just drop the idea. Such constructions will probably be rejected by Jan Tore Sanner.
Sanner will receive Norges Bank’s proposal when it is ready, and he will be strict. He was strict already yesterday. Sanner made it clear that he has not yet instructed the bank, as it turns out that the law allows for. He will consider doing so, if the new solution from Norges Bank is not good enough. What determines it? That will be a political assessment. If Sanner does not believe that the Storting perceives the solution provided by Norges Bank as a good enough answer to the requirements set by the Storting, Sanner will probably instruct the bank.
Sanner threatens with instruction. It is a type of sentence that makes you shudder – only when it comes from the correct finance ministers from the Conservative Party.
Gives Olsen a hard deadline
The case is not just piquant and spectacular, it is also historical – and of fundamental importance. We have now come to the extreme of Norges Bank’s independence, and past. Thus an important fact emerges: Norges Bank does not have independence as if it were a state power. It would be completely unthinkable to intervene in the same way before the courts. Norges Bank, on the other hand, is under overall political control – which is regulated through legislation.
In addition, has this case showed us something about the ideal of equality. It is strong here in Norway. There are certainly many who have a strained relationship with Tangen’s fortune, but it is not this part of the ideal of equality that has been governing in this case. It is the principle of equal treatment that has trumped.
Øystein Olsen himself has explained why this principle has been violated in this process. In the hearing in the finance committee last week, he thought it was good that Tangen had a passive ownership in Ako Capital, because he had done so much else to adapt to the requirements of the position. He was to move home, tax to Norway and sell himself into the Ako system. The great steps he had been willing to take, “showed that he was very motivated for the job,” as Olsen said.
The logic seems to have been: Since Tangen had to go so far to meet the requirements, longer than some other candidates, it was okay that he only walked two thirds of the trail.
She waved five red flags
No, said the Storting. Privileges that must be relinquished are not a burden. They are first and foremost privileges. They must be stated in order for Tangen to be a safe leader for an oil fund that is dependent on an impeccable reputation in Norwegian society.
Either Tangen discards the cards, or he sells himself down and moves the values to Norway. We can still end up with a rich leader for the oil fund, Tangen has a large, personal fortune. Political Norway will live well with that.
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