Norway's royal prince to live with girlfriend

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- Norway's Crown Prince Haakon has announced he is to live with his girlfriend in an Oslo flat.

Haakon, 28, will move into the flat in central Oslo with Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby and her three-year-old son, whose father has convictions for offences including possession of cocaine.

"The crown prince has agreed to buy a flat," palace spokeswoman Wenche Rasch told Reuters on Saturday.

Tjessem Hoiby, 27, is a student of social anthropology at Oslo university. Haakon caused a stir when he announced in May that she was his girlfriend.

However, opinion polls show many Norwegians believe the Crown Prince should be allowed to choose his own partner despite wide publicity about Tjessem Hoiby's past, including her attendance at parties where soft drugs were often used.

"I think it is nice that the crown prince, like many other young Norwegians, is choosing to move together with his girlfriend," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told NRK public radio.

He called Haakon, who is currently attending a one-year trainee diplomat course at the Foreign Ministry, a "responsible and wise young man."

Former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, a priest in the state Protestant church, said he hoped the decision to live together was a prelude to marriage.

"We must respect young people's choice of partner, and I hope that this is a step on the road towards a marriage," he told Norway's NTB news agency.

King Harald and Queen Sonja, herself a commoner, told Reuters in an interview last year that they would allow Haakon and his sister Martha Louise to choose their own partners.

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