Siv Jensen

Siv Jensen (born 1 June 1969) is a Norwegian politician who served as the leader of the Progress Party from 2006 to 2021. She also held the position as Minister of Finance from 2013 to 2020 in the Solberg Cabinet. She was also a member of the Norwegian parliament from Oslo from 1997 to 2021.

Born and raised in Oslo, Jensen graduated with a degree in business studies from the Norwegian School of Economics. She was first elected to parliament in the 1997 parliamentary election, and has later been re-elected for four consecutive terms. She chaired the parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs from 2001 to 2005, and in 2006 succeeded long-time chairman Carl I. Hagen as leader of the Progress Party.

Jensen was the Progress Party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 2009 parliamentary election, which saw record high results for the party. For the 2013 parliamentary election she supported prospects of a coalition government headed by the Conservative Party, and led her party into the Solberg Cabinet, the Progress Party's first ever government participation.

Jensen became Norway's longest-serving Minister of Finance since World War II in October 2019.

Early life and education Siv Jensen was born in Oslo to self-employed Tore Jensen (1926–1989), and Monica Kjelsberg (born 1939), owners of a shoe store during her childhood. While she holds that her neighbourhood was a nice place to grow up, her home was the scene of numerous burglaries. Her parents were divorced around 1980, and her father soon moved to Sweden. Her mother was for a short while active in the Ullern Progress Party, until finding out that politics was "not her thing".

After completing Marienlyst elementary school in 1985, Jensen attended upper secondary school at Oslo Commerce School in Oslo's Frogner district, graduating in 1988. Afterwards she enrolled in the Norwegian School of Economics, receiving her degree in business studies in 1992. She played a central role in budget negotiations with the centrist government of Kjell Magne Bondevik, and her work chairing the Finance Committee led her to become increasingly more profiled as a leader-figure within her party. While many had been speculating about the viability of the party and its future after Hagen resigning, a 2004 survey showed that Jensen enjoyed better general support than him, which was explained by her not being as controversial. Many had also predicted a more moderate course for the party with her being the leader, but she stood firmly by the policies of the party.

As leader of the Progress Party, Jensen took the initiative to talks with Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg in early 2007, seeking to build a broad centre-right coalition for the 2009 election. she launched herself as candidate for Prime Minister for the 2009 election and received a record share of the vote of 22.9%, although the parties combined ultimately lost out to the centre-left coalition. Ahead of the 2013 election Jensen continued working for a broad centre-right coalition, and endorsed Erna Solberg for Prime Minister. Although seeing its vote drop significantly, she led the Progress Party into government coalition talks for the first time in its history.

On 18 February 2021, Jensen announced that she would step down as party leader after a new one is elected at the party convention in May. She also said she would not be running for re-election in the September election. She cited her reasons to be to focus more on her personal life and family and pointed to Sylvi Listhaug as her preferred successor. Listhaug was subsequently designated her successor in late March, and was officially elected at the party convention on 8 May.

Minister of Finance On 16 October 2013, Jensen was appointed Minister of Finance as the Progress Party joined a minority coalition government led by the Conservative Party, the party's first ever government participation. Jensen's first national budget included proposals of cutting taxes, and spending more of Norway's oil wealth, and she also appointed a committee to consider changes to the 4% budgetary rule of Oil Fund spending.

Post-political career

In August 2021, it was announced that Jensen had accepted to lead an organisation working with drowning prevention initiated by the Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue. The umbrella organisation was in June 2022 revealed to be named Flyte. She stepped down from the role in January 2024 in order to become a political advisor.

Political views

Economy Jensen has described her party to be a "classical liberal party and also a very democratic party", and that its "basic main focus areas are individual freedom, individual rights, less state and more individual freedom", also that the party is "in favor of more competition instead of less. Because we fight state monopolies because they don't do good for competition, for price levels, for people's ability to choose between different distributors. That's our basic ideology behind the party".

Having been called a "Norwegian Margaret Thatcher" in the British press, Jensen has said she views former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as one of her "political heroes".

Israel

Jensen is a staunch supporter of Israel, and has stated that she is "not afraid to defend Israel's right to defend itself." She visited the Israeli city of Sderot in the summer of 2008 and experienced Hamas bombing first hand, forcing her and her company to run for the air-raid shelter. She strongly opposed the Norwegian government's decision to recognise Hamas as she holds that "you don't negotiate with terrorists, you just don't." Jensen has in addition advocated moving the Norwegian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, while also being open to accepting a future recognition of a Palestinian state.

In January 2009, in light of the Gaza War, she held an appeal at a demonstration called "Let Israel live" in support of Israel in Oslo. The Progress Party's general Israel-policy, supported by the appearance at the demonstration by Jensen and the fact that Christian Democratic Party leader Dagfinn Høybråten had not joined the demonstration, resulted in many Christian Democratic voters turning to the Progress Party. Soon after, the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) went public, fearing that Jensen might be the target of attacks. During the speech, which was held amid the 2008–09 Oslo riots, Jensen and pro-Israel demonstrators were suddenly attacked by violent rioters throwing rocks, and Jensen was forced to leave the podium.

Radical Islam In February 2009, Jensen held a speech where she warned about what she called a "sneaking Islamisation" (snikislamisering) of Norway on the background of a public debate about allowing hijab as part of the police uniform, and demands from Muslim groups of Muslim-only education and special food in prisons. The speech turned out to be highly controversial in the other parties. She used the immigrant-heavy Malmö, Sweden city district of Rosengård to illustrate failed integration policies, claiming that Sharia law had replaced Swedish law and that emergency staff could not drive into certain areas. The statements proved highly controversial in Sweden, and the Progress Party was invited to a tour around Rosengård by the mayor and police chief of Malmö, which it accepted. Jensen did however not join the tour herself.

Further, in March 2009, she stated that the fight against radical Islam "is the most important fight of our time." She said that she, as a classical liberal, would always fight against totalitarian ideas such as communism and National Socialism, and that radical Islam "is a dark and scary ideology." She also accused the other parties of being cowardly, ignoring the questions raised by the Progress Party, and claimed that "it is probably an expression of the fact that they don't understand what's happening in society around them. They close their eyes and try to present themselves as tolerant and liberal, when in fact they are deeply intolerant." In response to an incident in early 2010, where thousands of Muslims demonstrated in Oslo, she changed her claim of a "sneak-Islamisation" of Norway, to instead claim that the debate now was of a full-blown Islamisation. During the demonstration (a response to newspaper Dagbladet publishing a Muhammad cartoon in the context of a news story) Islamist Mohyeldeen Mohammad had notably "warned" of a "9/11" or "7/7" in Norway to applause from the crowd.

Climate change In December 2008, Jensen questioned the scientific consensus on climate change that climate change is man-made and dangerous, quoting the 1970s global cooling minority conjecture to cast doubt on climate science. Regardless, she is largely supportive of expanding and researching into renewable energy production.

Personal life Besides three half-sisters, Jensen has one younger brother, businessman Tom Einar Jensen, and one younger sister, Nina Jensen, former CEO of WWF. Norway. Her great-grandmother was the early feminist Betzy Kjelsberg. Although she was once engaged, Jensen has never married.

Jensen has stated to be a "proud member of the Church of Norway", while expressing some personal doubt about certain Christian doctrines. She has criticised church leaders for getting too involved in politics, particularly in regard to some church leaders publicly voicing opposition to Norwegian oil drilling.

In 2006, a biography on Siv Jensen was released, written by Martine Aurdal, chief editor of the feminist magazine Fett, later chief editor of the left-wing news magazine Ny Tid.