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TUT TUT !: Trine Skei Grande reveals next year’s state budget provides more than $ 30 billion for railways. Here on the way to government negotiations with the Conservatives and the Liberal Party in 2018. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB
GARDERMOEN (VG) Jernbane will be a clear winner on this budget, says outgoing Liberal Party leader Trine Skei Grande.
In a few hours, Trine Skei Grande will end up as Liberal leader, after ten years at the top. She reveals to VG that the rail investment will have a historical record of 32.1 billion in the state budget for 2021, which will be presented on October 7.
– The general picture is that we have gone from modifying our railway to expanding it in a really offensive way, Grande tells VG.
She thinks this is a change of pace.
– A bit of the problem when we came to power eight years ago was that hardly any railway project was planned. Now we have come a long way in planning and we are starting to implement development on a completely different level than before.
Last year’s proposal for the state budget contained NOK 26.8 billion for railways.
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Will lay new rails
The Liberal Party was a party supporting the Conservative and FRP governments from 2013 to 2018, when they joined the government.
– The last time we did something similar was when the Liberal Party had a clear majority in the Storting and Christian Michelsen wanted that way through the mountain to Bergen. This is the last time we had a Prime Minister from Bergen.
– Can you say something concrete about the projects?
– No, I can’t, says Grande and laughs.
– But are these new rails?
– Yes, there are also new rails, new projects and the necessary advancement of existing projects, which means that it will be in Norwegian history as when the Bergen line was built.
Easier than SV
– Is it important with such investments now in the time of the crown?
– Yes, but this is important for all infrastructure to work in Norway. Both should be able to reduce the pressure on homes in Oslo, so that people can live further away and have an efficient business trip, and it is about making trains an alternative to airplanes, Grande says.
– How did this come about?
– This is what the Liberal Party has been promoting for all these years. We are the ones who have had this at the top of the agenda, there is no one else who has had the railroad at the top. We did it together with others, but it was easier for us to get it in this collaboration constellation than it was for SV to get it in theirs.
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VG Sources: This was the behind-the-scenes game when Skei Grande was nominated for re-election.
Grande believes the backlog was great when the bourgeois side seized power in 2013, but gives SV credit for the increased funding under the red greens.
– SV did a great job of increasing from just over five billion crowns to just over eleven billion crowns a year. We now spend 30 on this year’s budget.
During the national meeting this weekend, Grande will be thanked and new leadership elected. Education Minister Guri Melby has been appointed party leader, with Climate and Environment Minister Sveinung Rotevatn as First Vice President and Culture Minister Abid Raja as Second Vice President.
Grande announced that she would resign as leader in March, shortly after being nominated for a new term.
