The Honorable

Margot Wallström

Vice President, European Commission

Institutional Relations & Communication Strategy

Chair, Ministerial Initiative

Council of Women World Leaders

Margot Wallström is currently the First Vice-President of the European Commission, which is the executive branch fo the European Union. Before taking up this position she worked for five years as EU Environment Commissioner.

She has had a long career in politics and served as a Member of Swedish Parliament 1979-1985. Her ministerial career began in 1988 when she was appointed as Minister of Civil Affairs to be followed by a position as Minister of Culture and then Minister of Social Affairs. In 1998, she retired from Swedish politics to become Executive Vice-President of Worldview Global Media – an NGO based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The following year, 1999, she was appointed Member of the European Commission, under President Romano Prodi, and responsible for EU environmental policy. During her mandate she developed the EU strategy and action programme for Sustainable Development with a main focus on human health, chemicals, biodiversity and climate change. She effectively mothered REACH which is a rigorous EU regulation on chemicals.

Mrs Wallström was also instrumental in concluding the ratification process of the Kyoto protocol. In 2004, when the Barroso Commission took office, she was appointed first Vice-President responsible for Inter-institutional Relations and Communication. Margot Wallström has received several honorary doctorates and awards for her work on Sustainable Development and Climate Change. She has done extensive work to endorse an EU-Africa partnership on renewable energy, champion equal opportunities and to further the CSR agenda in Europe.

Since 2001 Mrs Wallström is the honorary chair of the Business Leaders Initiative on Climate Change (BLICC). In this capacity she has developed an initiative on climate change called Road to Copenhagen together with Mary Robinson and Gro Harlem Brundtland (Club of Madrid).

Learn more about the Council's Ministerial Initiative

Visit Vice President Wallström's blog at the European Commission