At the end of next week, Prime Minister Erna Solberg will attend this year’s summit hosted by the G7 countries: the world’s richest industrialized countries. This is happening in Quebec, Canada.
She visited the President of the United States. She is now also invited to the next G7 summit, where she will meet him again.
In May, she made history by overtaking Kåre Willoch as the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the Conservative Party. She will now go down in history as the first Norwegian Prime Minister to actually “eat cherries with the grown-ups”. She was invited to give a lecture at the G7 summit in Quebec, Canada.
Solberg: – Unique opportunity
– I am happy to have the opportunity to participate in the G7 meeting and discuss the sustainable marine economy, says Solberg.
– The ocean offers us great opportunities, but also great challenges, such as the fight against waste and plastic in the sea. The countries of the world must cooperate here, she says.
Solberg considers this meeting “a unique opportunity to discuss this subject with the world’s major economic powers.”
Invited by the Prime Minister of Canada
In July last year, she was invited to participate in the G20 meeting in Hamburg. At the time, it was German host Angela Merkel who was the guest. It is now the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who is the host and who invited Prime Minister Erna Solberg to give a conference.
It takes place on the second day of the G7 meeting, as part of an expanded session where maritime zones are on the agenda. Solberg is the only external head of state invited from Europe, but several southern countries have also been invited to this extended part of the summit.
Erna Solberg is pictured here at last year’s G20 meeting in Hamburg.
Meets the second weekend in June
The meeting will take place on June 8 and 9.
Solberg will participate in a two-and-a-half hour session with lunch and lecture on Saturday afternoon local time. Erna Solberg will likely talk about everything from climate challenges in northern regions to sustainable fisheries management to what it means to be both a fishing and oil nation.
According to sources in the Prime Minister’s Office, she was likely invited because of her commitment to ocean policy, climate policy and the northern regions.
Outside Norwegian borders, people are interested in Norwegian management of fisheries resources – based on knowledge acquisition. For outsiders, Norway’s use of impact assessments before starting oil and gas activities is also of interest.
From G8 to G7
The G7 countries are a group of wealthy, democratic industrialized countries working together. The group is made up of Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Great Britain, Germany and the United States.
Erna Solberg will therefore, among others, meet Donald Trump, Theresa May, Manuel Macron and Angela Merkel. She also meets May a few days earlier in London.
After 1991, Russia began to be invited to annual summits. The country was officially incorporated into the “club” in 2006, leading to the group being then called G8. But Russia was suspended in 2014 over its annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It thus became the “Group of Seven” again.
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