In autumn 2018, Børge Brende chatted with financier Jeffrey Epstein about replacing the UN with the World Economic Forum. Now the former Davos leader is sitting in a nervous hearing in the Storting's constitutional committee and dismisses the conversation about a new global architecture as nonsense.
- It falls on its own unreasonableness, he says.
The problem is that he spent time fooling around with the world's most famous sex offender. The billionaire Epstein was already convicted in 2008 for having bought sex from a minor. He died in a New York prison in August 2019, accused of sex trafficking with young girls.
Børge Brende, former Norwegian foreign minister and until February this year head of the World Economic Forum, becomes the face of the crisis in Norway's power elite. He is the only one participating in the Storting's hearing of the main characters in the scandal.
He begins his speech by stating that he never met Epstein during his years as Secretary of State. He says he strongly disapproves of the financier's actions and feels compassion for the victims of the abuse. He also regrets that he acted untruthfully when asked about Epstein by journalists last fall. He was afraid that the contact "would be interpreted as something more than it was".
That crisis management went awry.
Norway is usually portrayed as a small country, where everyone knows everyone and where solidarity across party lines is great. After the Epstein scandal, the Norwegians are forced to review whether the friendships have gone too far. The accusations against the foreign administration concern what is called ukultur in Norwegian – an unhealthy culture, a rotten system.
The former top diplomats Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Juul become the symbols. They were the architects behind the Oslo Accords in the fall of 1993, which was the first direct peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Their efforts were decisive in establishing Norway as a humanitarian power.
Epstein documents released last winter showed that Juul and Rød-Larsen had a close friendship with the six-time convicted financier. The couple's children were beneficiaries in Epstein's will. The revelations have raised questions about loans, donations, housing deals and visas for young Russian women via Rød-Larsen's think tank IPI (International Peace Institute). The eco-crime agency Økokrim has started corruption investigations. An independent review commission is to get to the bottom of the scandal within the ruling elite.
The hearings in the Storting's constitutional committee revolve around Norway's support for IPI. Børge Brende, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2013–2017, shares responsibility with several of Norway's most powerful politicians. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Labor Party between 2005 and 2012. The new Høyre leader Ine Eriksen Søreide led the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2017–2021.
Everything appears as a single gag of deep friendships and superficial acquaintances, great seriousness and cheap jokes
In the constitutional committee, top politicians replace each other with the same message. They categorically dismiss allegations of crony corruption or oversight failures. They state that there was broad political agreement on the support for IPI.
Brende becomes noticeably angry when he also receives questions about Norway's contribution to the World Economic Forum. In the end, the progressive politician and Member of Parliament Per-Willy Amundsen intervenes and reminds us of the seriousness of the review.
But the round in the testimonies becomes proof of the basic problem with the foreign policy complex in Norway. Everything appears as a single gag of deep friendships and superficial acquaintances, great seriousness and cheap jokes.
Today we know that Brende kept in touch with Epstein via text messages, e-mails and dinners. We know that the architect of the Oslo Accords, Terje Rød-Larsen, was there - as was Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. That makes it harder to dismiss discussions of world order as nonsense.
