Gunilla Carlsson

Background

She was born and raised in Lund in Skåne.

Career

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. 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. 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. 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.

The European Union team did not buy that argument, and would not even put the sanctions issue on the negotiating table at that time, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation report. 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. Subsequently, she resigned her seat in the Swedish Riksdag.

Achievements

• 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.

Politics

With the growing co-operation between the Swedish opposition parties, she was appointed to head the group co-ordinating foreign policy. This was to discuss the lifting of targeted European Union sanctions against him and more than 200 of his political allies and related businesses. He and his Zanu-Public Finance party have for years loudly argued that these measures are directly responsible for Zimbabwe"s economic collapse.

Membership

She served as Minister for International Development Cooperation from 2006 to 2013, member of the Swedish Riksdag from 2002 to 2013 and deputy chairman of her party from 2003 to 2015.