OSLO/BRUSSELS (NNA) – The former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who took over as secretary general of NATO on Wednesday, went through the majority of his schooling in a Waldorf school.

The social democrat, who was born in 1959, attended the Oslo Rudolf Steiner School from 1966 to 1975. He then moved to the Oslo Katedralskol for the last three years where he prepared for his school leaving exams. Stoltenberg comes from a family of diplomats.

The Norwegian, who has in the past demonstrated eurythmy sounds in a feature about him in the evening news on Norwegian broadcaster NRK, took up his office on 1 October. According to press reports, NATO members who supported Stoltenberg for the job included above all the USA, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. He replaces Anders Fogh Rasmussen from Denmark as secretary general.

The Labour politician was prime minister in a red-green coalition from 2005 to 2013. It was during his time in office that the massacre at the Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utoya occurred in the summer of 2011. At the time he was praised in the media for the sensitive way in which he handled this national tragedy as a politician.  The German newspaper Die Welt commented on its website that his diplomatic skills, assertiveness and ability always to find the right words had not gone unnoticed in Brussels.

The NATO secretary general faces major tasks with the crisis in the Ukraine and the forthcoming withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan. 

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Item: 141005-02EN Date: 5 October 2014

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