Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that he is returning to government in his native Norway as finance minister.
That left current Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the leader of Stoltenberg’s center-left Labor Party, with several Cabinet posts to fill, among them that of outgoing Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, the leader of the Center Party.
Stoltenberg and Gahr Støre appeared together at an event in Oslo on Tuesday, where the prime minister was presenting his new team, but Gahr Støre didn't explicitly mention Stoltenberg's new job.
But in a statement released by the Munich Security Conference in Germany, which Stoltenberg was due to take over shortly, Stoltenberg said he was “deeply honored to have been asked to help my country at this critical stage.”.
“Having carefully considered the current challenges we face, I have decided to accept Prime Minister Støre’s request to serve as his Minister of Finance,” he said.
