The Minister for Foreign Affairs rejects claims in the controversial Ap-book

In the book, which has been penned by Dagbladet journalists Steinar Suvatne and Jørgen Gilbrant, it is claimed that Eide was in reality silenced about speaking out about climate policy in the spring of 2021.

“The background figures showed that the Labor Party lost support every time the party’s climate policy spokesperson opened his mouth,” the book says.

– That is absolutely not right. On the contrary, I worked on how to raise our climate profile, Eide adds VG and writes off the information as “simply an untrue claim”.

Haven’t read the book

Eide tells the newspaper that he has not read the book himself, but reacts to all the publications that have appeared in the wake of the launch:

– There is also a lot of other things that I don’t recognize myself in, he says

To this writing, the two authors write that “We are completely confident in the source basis of the story VG is quoting from the book. It is Espen Barth Eide’s privilege to disagree with the presentation in the book. We of course respect that”.

The authors have received criticism from both Labor politicians and a number of journalists as a result of several factual errors in the book. The authors have also been criticized for extensive use of anonymous sources.

Gyldendal has no plans to withdraw the book, but is now working on a new edition.

Not full access to sources

To Aftenposten states Gyldendal’s publishing manager for non-fiction, Reidar Mide Solberg, that the publisher does not have full access to the authors’ source material.

– Although we could sometimes wish to have full access to the sources, we have to respect that it is not possible in a project like this. If we could not accept these premises, we could not publish this type of book either, writes Solberg in an email to the newspaper.

The first edition of 3,000 books is already sold out. The disputed book must be revised before new editions can be printed.