Henning Warloe has good reason to compete against Hurtigruten, but he’s running for the wrong reason.

There are 175 million other reasons to be furious than a little whistle on New Year’s Eve.

Debate

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Hurtigruten has received NOK 175 million in cash support from the state due to the pandemic. Hurtigruten is owned by a Luxembourg-registered company and a pair of Norwegian billionaires. The Luxembourg company is once again owned by a London-based takeover fund, and the investors in this company are not publicly known, but the government continues to choose to support them with large sums of money.

The scheme has been extended until February, and then it will likely be incorporated in at least the same amount in the coming months.

The compensation scheme It was developed to prevent the permanent disappearance of jobs. The plan was implemented very quickly in March and was an important contribution to the Norwegian economy doing well during the first crisis. But good first aid is not always the same as long-term treatment and, in our opinion, the scheme should have changed already after a few months.

It did not happen.

As Erna said in her New Years speech, 2020 has been a difficult year. The government has had to introduce important measures in the short term. Normally we have a management system where decisions take a long time. This has the advantage that many are listened to and that social workers in the ministries have plenty of time to do evaluations.

It may seem that when decisions need to be made quickly, it is powerful companies that get the best of them.

Our calculations show At least some companies, including Hurtigruten, received much of the support that went to companies across the country.

Already per. By August, Hurtigruten had received as much support as 13,000 small businesses. The Hurtigruten ships will remain there until the summer, even if the owners were struggling financially.

This is not the case for all small businesses. This year, the Norwegian state has a deficit of several hundred billion crowns and the money is raised by draining the oil fund, which also belongs to the next generations.

So we should make some demands on the companies that receive support.

It is correct to share So much for a company that has stone-rich owners and has even sinned with infection control? In a demanding period, therefore, it is important that politicians across the country help the government, which must make decisions in a short time.

So it would have been better for leading right-wing politicians like Henning Warloe to focus on the 175 million going to foreign owners behind Hurtigruten, rather than just concentrating on whistling on New Year’s Eve.