Former foreign minister Børge Brende apologises for misleading statements in Epstein hearing

At a parliamentary inquiry into the culture of Norway's foreign service, former foreign minister Børge Brende faced scrutiny over his relationship with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. Brende clarified that his first encounter with Epstein was in 2018, after his ministerial tenure, and that it consisted of three business dinners and email/SMS exchanges. He apologized for having answered a newspaper query falsely in November and for fearing the contact would be misinterpreted before the Davos meeting.

The hearing also touched on Brende's previous directorship of the World Economic Forum, with critics questioning whether he was impartial while Norway allocated substantial funds to the organization. Brende maintained he had resigned from the forum before rejoining the government and that he had performed a conflict-of-interest assessment. Additional lines of questioning involved funding increases to the think-tank IPI, which Brende said were based on merit and not personal connections.