Jens Stoltenberg

Who is Jens Stoltenberg?

Jens Stoltenberg is a Norwegian politician who is the 13th Secretary General of NATO. He served as Prime Minister of Norway from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2005 to 2013. In March 2014, Stoltenberg was appointed by NATO's North Atlantic Council to be the treaty organization's secretary general and chairman of the North Atlantic Council, succeeding Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Stoltenberg assumed his position on 1 October 2014.

A member of the Labour Party, Stoltenberg was first elected to Parliament in 1993 for the Oslo constituency. He served as state secretary in the Ministry of the Environment from 1990 to 1991 and as Minister of Industry from 1993 to 1996 in the Brundtland's Third Cabinet, respectively. Following the resignation of Gro Harlem Brundtland in 1996, Thorbjørn Jagland was elected leader of the Labour Party and became prime minister, while Stoltenberg was appointed Minister of Finance, an office he held until October 1997 when Jagland and the entire government resigned as a consequence of its 36.9 ultimatum. While in parliamentary opposition, Stoltenberg served in the standing committee on energy affairs.