Eirik Lae Solberg
Eirik Lae Solberg is a Norwegian politician for the Conservative Party. He has served as the Governing Mayor of Oslo since 2023 and was previously the Oslo City Commissioner for Finance from 2014 to 2015. Lae Solberg served as a deputy member of parliament for Oslo from 2021 to 2025, having previously done so between 1993 and 1997 for Buskerud.
Education
Solberg holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the London [School of Economics and Political Science] and a master's degree in European history and politics from the University of Cambridge.Political career
Local politics
Solberg was elected to the Oslo City Council in 2007, and led the committee on finance and the Conservative group from 2009 to 2013.In 2014, he was appointed city commissioner for finance, a post he held until the Conservative coalition lost the 2015 local elections.
Lae Solberg was elected deputy leader of the Oslo Conservative Party in 2018 with Heidi Nordby Lunde as leader, and was re-elected in 2020.
He was the Oslo Conservative Party's candidate for Governing Mayor in the 2019 local elections. He lost the election to incumbent Raymond Johansen, and resigned as the Conservatives' group leader. He did however retain his council seat.
On 1 July 2022, he was again chosen as the Oslo Conservatives' candidate for Governing Mayor for the 2023 local elections. The Conservative block won a majority in the following election, and the Conservatives initially sought to form a new city government with the Liberal Party, Christian Democrats and the Progress Party, but these negotiations collapsed and the Conservatives then sought to form a minority government with only the Liberal Party. The Progress Party had also ruled out a cooperation agreement with a new city government, citing they would not support a government they weren't a part of. However, they later backtracked and agreed to negotiate a cooperation agreement with the Conservatives and Liberals. The parties presented their platform on 24 October.
Governing Mayor of Oslo
Lae Solberg and his city government succeeded the Johansen government on 25 October 2023.Tenure
In mid November, he called on the national government to assist the municipality with police staffing and combating violence and criminal gangs.With strong blizzards covering large parts of Eastern Norway in January 2024, Lae Solberg advised the public to work from home and not utilise vehicles more than necessary. While several counties in region had closed their schools, he stated he would restrain from doing so in Oslo, citing their importance and a high threshold to do so.
He and finance commissioner Hallstein Bjercke presented Oslo's 2025 budget in September 2024, which notably included a proposed increase of 63% in water and sewage fees for the next four years. Finance minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum accused the Conservatives of breaking election promises of maintaining decreased fees in municipalities they secured power in. Lae Solberg however criticsed Vedum for taking away millions of NOK from Oslo municipality through the national government's new revenue system for municipalities.
In June 2025, the Progress Party withdrew their support for Lae Solberg's government, leaving it in a minority. The party stated that they were dissatisfied with the changes that the government had implemented.