PERSON: Jens Stoltenberg

Secretary General

Jens Stoltenberg (Norwegian: [jɛns ˈstɔ̀ɫtn̩bærɡ]; born 16 March 1959) is a Norwegian politician who has served as the 13th secretary general of NATO since 2014. A member of the Norwegian Labour Party, he previously served as the 34th prime minister of Norway from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2005 until 2013.

Born in Oslo as the son of the prominent diplomat and politician Thorvald Stoltenberg and politician Karin Stoltenberg (née Heiberg), Stoltenberg attended Oslo Waldorf School and Oslo Cathedral School before graduating with a degree in economics from the University of Oslo in 1987. During his studies, he worked as a journalist, and led Labour’s youth wing from 1985 to 1989.

He started his career in government as a state secretary in the Ministry of the Environment in 1990 and was elected to the Storting in 1993. He served as Minister of Industry and Energy from 1993 to 1996 and Minister of Finance from 1996 to 1997. He was prime minister from 2000 to 2001, was leader of the Labour Party from 2002 to 2014, and served as prime minister for a second time from 2005 to 2013. The following year, he was named as the 13th secretary general of NATO, and his term was subsequently extended four times by the NATO heads of state and government.

Stoltenberg has been described as a cautious politician, belonging to the right-wing of social democracy. When he became prime minister in 2000, he was portrayed as the “Norwegian Tony Blair,” and his policies were inspired by Blair’s New Labour agenda; his first government oversaw the most widespread privatisation by any Norwegian government to that date. Stoltenberg said he was both inspired by and wanted to learn from Blair’s policies. As the second longest-serving high-ranking official in NATO history, Stoltenberg has worked to expand the alliance into Eastern Europe and to strengthen the alliance’s military capabilities in response to the Russo-Ukrainian War, and his tenure coincided with the largest increase in NATO defense spending since the Cold War.

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