Raymond Johansen believes Eirik Lae Solberg should pay back Oslo municipality

Oslo municipality paid for Eirik Lae Solberg’s study trip to Copenhagen. Former city council leader Raymond Johansen believes he should pay back.

– When you have pooped on your calf in this way, I think you should apologize and pay back, says Raymond Johansen to Aftenposten.

Earlier this spring, Aftenposten wrote about city council leader Eirik Lae Solberg’s (H) study trip to Copenhagen.

The trip was organized by Høyre’s parliamentary group. No professionals from the city council leader’s administration took part in the trip.

Nevertheless, the bill was sent to Oslo municipality.

Bergen’s city council leader Christine Meyer (H) and Stavanger’s mayor Sissel Knutsen Hegdal (H) also participated. However, the party has paid for the two trips.

Split the bill

Aftenposten has requested an overview of all the times former city council leader Raymond Johansen had trips paid for by Oslo municipality without anyone from the administration being involved.

During the eight years Johansen ruled Oslo, this happened twice:

• In February 2017, Johansen participated in a working life conference in Brussels. The conference was organized by the European Trade Union Confederation.
• In December 2018, Johansen was in Lisbon to meet mayor Fernando Medina on the subject of European Green Capital. In Lisbon, he also attended a meeting with the Party of European Socialists (PES).

In the overview, it does appear that the bill for the Lisbon trip was shared between Oslo municipality and the Labor Party.

– I met the mayor in connection with Oslo being the European environmental capital, and that was fine. But the party and the municipality split the bill because of the Labor Party-relevant part of the trip, says Johansen.

– We concluded that we thought it would have been unmusical to let the municipality pay for the party part of the trip.

– Must have an active relationship with this

Opposition leader in the city council Marthe Scharning Lund (Ap) was herself chief of staff in the city council leader’s office from 2015 to 2019.

– I think we had a conscious relationship with these things. When I was chief of staff, we had many discussions about travel routines, and the Lisbon trip shows the assessment we made.

She feels that the city council leader has not been sufficiently aware of the problem.

– The city council leader’s office has stated that it was the administration itself that considered that the municipality should pick up the bill. Isn’t that okay?

– I would say that you can ask the administration for advice, but as the most responsible political leader, you are the one who makes the decision.

– It is correct that the municipality pays

City council leader Eirik Lae Solberg states that the city council leader’s office has a conscious relationship with which trips the municipality must pay for. He emphasizes that in this case he traveled by virtue of being the leader of the city council.

– The administration considered the programme, with meetings with municipal authorities and youth services in Copenhagen, as very relevant to me as city councilor and to the municipality’s work with young outsiders and combating youth crime.

He therefore believes it is right that the municipality paid for the trip.

Regarding the statement from Raymond Johansen, he says that he has no need to comment on statements from the former city council leader, but:

– I notice that Johansen has, among other things, traveled to Brussels for a LO and trade union conference that the municipality paid for, without anyone from the administration attending.

– I am confident that the administration made the same assessments for that trip, as when I went to Copenhagen to learn how we can fight youth crime and youth alienation.

– Disc boom

Marthe Scharning Lund says the following about the Brussels trip:

– This is a complete blunder from Lae Solberg and primarily testifies to a city council leader from the Conservative Party who completely lacks understanding of the trade union movement’s role in ensuring safe pay and working conditions.

She says Johansen was invited as city councilor to a panel of ministers, politicians, business and trade union leaders from all over Europe, to discuss pay and working conditions.

– While Solberg has traveled on a clean score to Copenhagen with TV2.