Per-Kristian Foss, who's also a former Finance Minister, can usually be relied on to support other conservative voices, including those from the US. This time, though, he fully agrees with his political rival from Norway's Socialist Left, current Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen, in her decision to back an ethics commission's decision to sell off Norway's holdings in Wal-Mart stock.
That's because neither Norway's government nor its parliament wants to invest in companies that it believes violate ethical guidelines. In the case of Wal-Mart, the ethics commission believed Wal-Mart profits from child labour and discriminates against women.
Wal-Mart was given repeated chances to counter the commission's findings last winter, and defend itself against charges of worker exploitation or discrimination, but chose not to do so.
"They haven't even bothered to answer the criticism against it," Foss told newspaper Aftenposten. He has little or no sympathy for US Ambassador Benson Whitney's verbal attack on Norway's investment guidelines, made in a speech Friday.
Whitney railed against Norway's decision to invest in line with its conscience, and said that its ethical guidelines were not in line with democratic principles. Whitney also complained that too many of the companies that Norway shuns are American, and he urged the Norwegian authorities to "adopt a clear set of standards" for evidence needed to start an investigation into individual companies.
"If I were to offer any advice, I think the ambassador should rather make a call to Wal-Mart's headquarters, and tell them how the Norwegian practice works," Foss said. "And then he should tell them (Wal-Mart) that it was stupid of them not to answer (Norway's questions about the allegations against it)."
Foss said that if the Norwegian pension fund's ethics commission has made a mistake, and that Wal-Mart doesn't for example profit from child labour, it's fully possible to include Wal-Mart back on the list of Norway's stockholdings.
Kerr-McGee was another American company that was blacklisted by Norway's pension fund, because of its oil exploration activities in the western Sahara. Its successor operations since have been included again, after the ethics commission found that the objectionable engagement in the Sahara had ended.
Asked whether it was odd, though, that American companies are so strongly represented on the list of those that the ethics commission has dropped, Foss said "no, because they (American companies) make up almost half of all the companies in which the Norwegian pension fund invests. Therefore it would be odd if they were not well-represented (on the rejection list).
"Moreover, it's a fact that American companies are the ones most tied to the weapons industry, and that's one of the key areas where there are a lot of delistings."
