Biography

Image via Kristian Pohl

Since 2014 Margot Wallström has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Sweden, as well as the acting Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden.

Margot Wallström was born in 1954. She went into politics after graduating from high school in 1973, as she began working as an Ombudsman for the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League.

She was elected as a Member of the Swedish parliament in 1979 where she served for six years. From 1988 to 1998, she was successively Minister for Youth, Local Authorities and Consumer Affairs (1988-1991), Minister of Culture (1994-1996), and Minister of Social Affairs (1996-1998). The following year she became Executive Vice-President of Worldview Global Media before returning to European politics where she served as a European Commissioner for the Environment from 1999 to 2004, European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy from 2004 to 2010, as well as the first Vice President of the European Commission from 2004 to 2010.

In 2007, Wallström became Chair of the Ministerial Initiative of the Council for Women World Leaders. In 2010, Ban Ki-Moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, appointed her the first Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Upon the completion of her term with the United Nations, Wallström became chair of the University Board of Lund University in Sweden (2012-2014). She was Sweden’s Minister for Nordic Cooperation from 2016 to 2019. Wallström has also served as Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden and Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2019