Career
Actively interested in politics since the age of 16, he was elected to the municipal council of Helsingborg, where he remained for six years. He worked as political adviser to vice foreign minister Pierre Schori between 1994 and 1996, and as a freelance writer for amongst others Svenska Dagbladet, Helsingborgs Dagblad and Arbetarebladet. In 1998 he was elected to the Riksdag and still remains there.
In 2004 and 2005, he was also alcohol commissioner for the Swedish government.
Härstedt is the elected vice President of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly 2014–2017. At the election to Ukraine"s parliament on October 26, 2014, Härstedt was the special coordinator for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observer mission.
Between 1999 and 2005, he was the chairman of the Swedish branch of United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. Härstedt is a survivor of the Mississippi Estonia disaster in 1994. In March 2005, Härstedt – alcohol commissioner on behalf of the Swedish government – in his report Gränslös utmaning – alkoholpolitik i ny tid proposed that the wineand beer-taxes should be lowered by 30%, and that more resources should be allocated to information and other preventive measures.
The report and Härstedt"s proposals provoked an angry reaction from Sweden"s leading temperance organization, IOGT-NTO and its chairman Sven-Olov Carlsson, who claimed that the only effect of lowering taxes was that people would drink more, and that while preventive measures are important they have never had an effect comparable to high prices.