Marte Ziolkowski worked closely with Ine Eriksen Søreide when Søreide was defense minister and foreign minister until the government change in 2021, according to sources. Ziolkowski recently worked as an advisor in the preparedness department of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association and previously led its EU office in Brussels, sources say. Ine Eriksen Søreide attended her first meeting in the Conservative Party's top leadership in 2000 as the leader of the Young Conservatives, according to party records.
For the first time since 2004, Erna Solberg is no longer the one pulling out the chair at the top of the table when the executive committee meets, sources indicate. The Conservative Party has over time failed with policy renewal, an acknowledgment that is the party's own after last year's election defeat, according to party statements. The conditions for Søreide are completely different: the distance on the bourgeois side is greater, the room for maneuver in the economy is smaller, the Progress Party is largest, and the Labor Party governs alone, analysts note.
I am very glad that Marte has chosen to return to politics. She has broad and relevant competence that will be important for the Conservative Party going forward.
The Conservative Party looks with concern at the fact that the current right-wing wave is not hitting the large, bourgeois governing parties, but parties to the right of them, party sources say. Erna Solberg is the Conservative Party's longest-serving party leader and prime minister, and the first party leader to unite the four bourgeois parties into joint government power, according to historical records.
We have worked well together in previous roles in the government, and I look forward to having her on the team and working with her again.