The price shock for electricity meant that in February last year the government set up the energy commission, which will assess the power policy towards 2030 and 2050. Both mayors, industry, the power industry and consumers are represented. The commission will present its final report on 1 February. But how they have worked to reach their conclusions, the public does not get to know. The commission has chosen to keep all meeting notices and minutes confidential. The commission also considers itself exempt from keeping public postal records, which all businesses are basically required to do. The secretariat refers to an exception provision in the Archives Act, and claims that all the commission’s documents are internal anyway. “The Energy Commission has not found it appropriate to record internal documents,” writes the commission’s secretariat in a recent denial of access to news. The secrecy could affect the legitimacy of the commission, fears the Center Party’s parliamentary representative Per Olaf Lundteigen. Photo: Hans Cosson-Eide / news – It’s easy to backfire when you initially have a critical spotlight on you. So it should be in the committee’s own interest to be open about what you can be open about. He believes the secrecy is probably legal, but hardly smart. – They have no obligation to publish it other than publicly paid reports in my opinion. But that is not wise. Rødt’s representative in the energy and environment committee, Sofie Marhaug, goes even further: SUSPECT: Rødt’s Sofie Marhaug believes the commission is trying to limit the public debate through secrecy. Photo: Linnea Skare Oskarsen – I think it is suspicious and strongly objectionable. The energy debate needs greater openness and honesty. We know there is a great deal of disagreement, and if we are to manage to move forward in energy policy, we must have the best possible factual basis for what we are discussing. Marhaug believes the secrecy is no accident. – I think they are doing it to place some restrictions on the debate, and I think that is very unwise. Venstres Grunde Almeland believes the commission’s secrecy appears “very strange”. Venstres Grunde Almeland thinks the secrecy appears strange. Photo: William Jobling / news – If everything happens behind closed doors and you don’t get any kind of transparency, it will clearly also mean that you get a lot of questions about how the work has gone on. – Here I encourage the commission to think again and how to ensure more transparency. – Internal communication The Commission itself believes they are only following normal practice. Earlier government-appointed commissions, such as the Corona Commission, on the other hand kept postal records and gave partial access to both meeting minutes and case papers. REJECTS: Commission chairman Lars Sørgard believes the commission is only following normal practice. Photo: Christian Lura / news – It is important for such a committee to be able to discuss openly and internally. Then there will be more good discussions. It is important that we have the type of internal communication that does not go public, says committee leader Lars Sørgard to news. He believes the secrecy is “absolutely normal procedure”, and points out that the final report from the work will be presented in just under two weeks. – There will be a detailed report that will explain very clearly what has been discussed. Sofie Marhaug in Rødt, on the other hand, believes that the commission should also be open about the process and the discussions in the committee, and not just the final end result. – I think the energy commission must make the work process public as far as possible. – In an energy debate polarized with different opinions, we cannot just cover them up. We have to have an honest and open discussion, and that discussion must continue after the report is presented. Then we must know what we are discussing the result of. Quarrels about price scrutiny Several are also critical that the committee in its mandate should not look at the so-called price formation, i.e. reasons why Norwegian power is at a European price level, and possible measures to remedy this. That job has now been shifted to a separate electricity price committee, which has not yet been formally set up. Marhaug believes the meeting minutes, which are now kept secret, could shed light on what issues the Energy Commission has chosen to ignore. – At the very beginning when the commission was set up, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum was given the impression that they should also look at price, and we now know that it has been opted out. I’m very interested in the rationale for that. Does it have to do with EU rules, does it have to do with work capacity or disagreement? We will not know that when we are not given insight into the work of the commission. Photo: Sissel Riibe Per Olaf Lundteigen also believes that the debate would be better with greater transparency around which issues the committee has chosen to go into, and which it has not. – Absolutely obvious. When it comes to price formation, you should say why you should not go into it, and who decided that you should not go into price formation between, for example, the Norwegian electricity price and the German electricity price. – It is a major weakness if the report comes without having discussed what affects price formation, Lundteigen believes. The committee leader rejects this criticism. – I think it is important that we wait until the report arrives. There will be some information about price formation, and I hope that the debate from there can be good. – It’s not like we don’t say anything about price formation, says Sørgard.
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– Suspicious and highly objectionable – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
