Norway’s government risks splitting after a coalition partner threatened to pull its support over the repatriation of a woman who joined Islamic State in Syria.
The anti-immigration Progress Party threatened to abandon the Conservative-led administration in the next few weeks if a series of demands aren’t met. The move could topple the center-right coalition led by Erna Solberg, who’s been prime minister since 2013.
“We’re not going to stay in government at any price,” Finance Minister and Progress leader Siv Jensen told Dagbladet on Wednesday. She’s giving Solberg a fortnight to respond to her demands.
Jensen’s threat follows a government decision to repatriate a Norwegian woman charged with joining a terrorist organization and her two children, one of which is critically ill. Progress was only willing to let the children back into Norway. The conflict echoes similar debates in other European countries over how to handle nationals caught fighting for ISIS.
It’s not the first time that a conflict has erupted between Norway’s government parties, which hold different views on key issues such as immigration, climate change and the Nordic country’s vast oil industry.
The coalition has ruled with the support of the centrist Liberals and Christian Democrats since 2013, before the two parties joined the government in 2018 and 2019, providing Solberg with a majority in Parliament.
The four parties have lost much of their support since the 2017 election, with the average of national polls in January compiled by pollofpolls.no showing they stand to lose power in next year’s election. Progress is down to about 10%, compared to 15% in the 2017 election.
Jensen told Dagbladet that Progress was in need of political victories to redress popular support, but didn’t say precisely what demands the party would make to Solberg. Party leaders and lawmakers were in a meeting on Wednesday afternoon, a spokesman said, declining to provide further details on the discussions.