Farmer tipped to be Norway’s new aquaculture minister
Labour Party (AP) deputy leader Bjørnar Skjæran will be Norway’s new fisheries and seafood minister, the country’s three largest newspapers reported today.
Dagbladet, VG and Dagens Næringsliv all wrote that the appointment had been confirmed by sources close to the process.
Labour leader Jonas Gahr Støre, who will be Norway’s new prime minister, has been negotiating with other parties to form a left-leaning government following September’s general election that unseated the Conservatives after eight years.
Deputy leader
Bjørnar Skjæran has been deputy leader of AP since April 2019. He was mayor of Lurøy municipality, a fishing municipality on Helgeland, from 2011-2015, and group leader on the county council from 2015-2019. Skjæran’s debut as a national politician came when he was elected as the party’s deputy leader, and this autumn he was elected to the Storting (parliament) from Nordland.
A self-starter, he bought a farm in 1986 and started building up a dairy herd. In 2000, Skjæran bought a bus and started a transport company. In 2007, he bought two trucks and a wheel loader so that he could snow removal in the winter and take transport assignments in spring, summer and autumn.
He has been a full-time politician since 2011.
Utilising resources
“I have a burning commitment that we will utilise all the resources in Nordland,” Skjæran says in his profile on the AP website.
“Fish, minerals, power, forests and the earth must provide more jobs and greater value creation locally [so that] we create work for everyone, greater export values and ensure that our children can inherit a strong welfare state and have the opportunity to settle in strong local communities.”
Separate licensing regime
The Labour Party states in its manifesto that it wants Norway to be the world’s foremost seafood nation and will, among other things, develop a separate licensing regime for aquaculture, and try out a scheme where a share of future aquaculture licences are leased to the seafood industry.
VG writes that the northern part of the country where fishing and aquaculture interests are clearly greatest, have always been core areas for the Labour Party.
The sea and the resources in the sea have also been high on the agenda for Jonas Gahr Støre, and Støre has on several occasions stated that the sea’s resources and opportunities will be prioritised if he becomes Norway's prime minister.
Støre will present his government just after 11am BST tomorrow.
