Gunilla Carlsson

Gunilla Carlsson
Minister for International Development Cooperation
In office 6 October 2006 – 17 September 2013
Prime Minister	Fredrik Reinfeldt
Preceded by	Carin Jämtin
Succeeded by	Hillevi Engström
Member of the Swedish Riksdag for Östergötland County
In office 30 September 2002 – 18 September 2013
Personal details
Born	(1963-05-11) 11 May 1963 Lund, Skåne
Political party	Moderate Party
Residence	Tyresö, Stockholm
Website	www.gunilla.moderat.se Swedish website

Anna Gunilla Carlsson (born 11 May 1963) is a Swedish politician and a member of the Moderate Party. She served as Minister for International Development Cooperation from 2006 to 2013, and was a member of the Swedish Riksdag from 2002 to 2013. In addition, she is deputy chairman of her party since 2003.

Early life

She was born and raised in Lund in Skåne. She was at one time chairman of the Moderate Youth League district in that county. At The Battle of Lycksele, when current party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt was elected chairman of the Youth League, Carlsson was elected vice chairman.

Political career

After working as an auditor, she joined the Moderate Party office in 1994. In 1995 she was elected to the European Parliament and served until 2002, when she was elected to the Riksdag for Stockholm. In 1999, she was elected vice chairman of the Moderate Party.

With the growing co-operation between the Swedish opposition parties, she was appointed to head the group co-ordinating foreign policy. This has led to speculation about her being a possible candidate to the office of Minister for Foreign Affairs after Alliance for Sweden's victory in the 2006 election. With a number of the Moderate Party Riksdag members from Östergötland resigning, she has decided to stand in her home county in 2006. While she won the internal primaries, she was only placed second on the list after Gunnar Axén, but comfortably reached re-election as the party went from three to four seats from the county.^[1] She continues to make her home in Tyresö outside Stockholm.

In September 2009 she led, together with Karel De Gucht, Europe's Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, a delegation to Zimbabwe for discussions with President Robert Mugabe. This was to discuss the lifting of targeted EU sanctions against him and more than 200 of his political allies and related businesses. He and his Zanu-PF party have for years loudly argued that these measures are directly responsible for Zimbabwe's economic collapse. The EU team did not buy that argument, and would not even put the sanctions issue on the negotiating table at that time, according to the BBC report.^[2][3]

As the Swedish Riksdag convened after the summer on 17 September 2013, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt announced that Carlsson had submitted her resignation and he had accepted the resignation earlier that morning.^[4] Subsequently, she resigned her seat in the Swedish Riksdag.^[5]

References

External links

• Officiell website (Swedish)
• Gunilla Carlsson at the Riksdag website (Swedish)