Annie Marie Therése Lööf (, ; born 16 July 1983) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

. She has been a

Member of the Riksdag Members of Parliament (Swedish language, Swedish: ''riksdagsledamöter'', singular: ''riksdagsledamot'') in Sweden sit in the Riksdag. Description ''Members of Parliament'' refers to the elected List of members of the Swedish Riksdag, members ...

, representing her home constituency of

Jönköping County Jönköping County ( sv, Jönköpings län) is a county or '' län'' in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Halland, Västra Götaland, Östergötland, Kalmar and Kronoberg. The total county population was 356,291 inhabitants in Sept ...

, since 2006, and leader of the Centre Party since 2011. Lööf served as Minister for Enterprise from 2011 to 2014, in the

Reinfeldt Cabinet The cabinet of Fredrik Reinfeldt ( sv, Regeringen Reinfeldt) was the cabinet of Sweden from 2006 to 2014. It was a coalition cabinet consisting of the four parties in the centre-right Alliance for Sweden: the Moderate Party, Centre Party, Lib ...

Early life and career

Annie Lööf was born and raised in the small village of Maramö, near

Värnamo Värnamo (), historically known as Wernamo, is a town in Jönköping County in the south of Sweden. It is situated on the river Lagan just north of the lake Vidöstern. It is the seat of Värnamo Municipality and has 19,778 inhabitants as of ...

. Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson (18 January 2019)
Braving outrage, Swedish liberal Loof dumps partners to block populists
''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

''. During her last year at Finnvedens Secondary School in Värnamo, where she studied social sciences, she developed an interest in politics.

Political career

Early beginnings

At the end of 2001 Lööf joined the Centre Party. During the 2002 general election she was employed as an election agent for the party's youth organization ( CUF) in Jönköping County and in the same year she won a Dag Hammarskjöld Scholarship, which gave her the chance to immerse herself in international peace and environmental issues at the

UN Headquarters zh, 联合国总部大楼french: Siège des Nations uniesrussian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций es, Sede de las Naciones Unidas , image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004.jpg , im ...

in New York. After the election she enrolled to study law at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion LL.M.) in August 2011.

Member of Parliament, 2006–present

In the general election of 2006 Lööf was elected to the

Riksdag The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...

, being at that time the youngest member of the legislature. In January 2007, together with her colleague

Fredrick Federley Fredrick Erik Federley (; born 6 May 1978) is a former Swedish politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Sweden. He was a member of the Centre Party, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. He was a member ...

, Lööf initiated the Liberal Group, a network of liberal-minded people both inside and outside the Riksdag. She has also been the

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

of CUF. For several years she served on the board of the Nordic Centre Youth Federation, Scandinavia's second largest youth organization. In 2008 Lööf was awarded the "Young European Leadership Program" grant from the United States Embassy. Before she became a minister and party leader, Annie Lööf was member of the Committee on Finance, the

War Delegation The War Delegation ( sv, krigsdelegationen, or ''KD'') is a standing committee of the Riksdag, with its functions enumerated in the Instrument of Government and the Riksdag Act, with the purpose of replacing the Riksdag as a whole whenever Sweden i ...

and a vicepresident of the

Committee on Justice (Parliamentary) Committee on Justice ( sv, justitieutskottet) (JuU) is a parliamentary committee in the Swedish Riksdag. The committee's main areas of responsibility concern Judiciary policies on various different authorities, among other th ...

and first Deputy

House Leader {{Politics of Canada In Canada, each political party with representation in the House of Commons has a House Leader who is a front bench Member of Parliament (MP) and an expert in parliamentary procedure. The same representation is found in the pr ...

for the Centre Party's parliamentary group and member of the party's executive board. She has served as a member on several government commissions, including the E-Publicity Committee, the investigation of the police needs of signal intelligence and in the signals intelligence committee, which evaluated the

National Defence Radio Establishment The National Defence Radio Establishment ( sv, Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) is a Swedish government agency organised under the Ministry of Defence. The two main tasks of FRA are signals intelligence (SIGINT), and support to government authorit ...

activities. During her two terms, she has been active in municipal politics in Värnamo, as deputy of the

City Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

from 2002 to 2004, as member of the Citizens' Board from 2002 to 2004, as well as ordinary municipal councillor from 2006 to 2007. Lööf was also elected to the local councils for Värnamo in 2010, but left the mission because of many national commitments. Until 2008 Lööf was a substitute to the

Nordic Council The Nordic Council is the official body for formal inter-parliamentary Nordic cooperation among the Nordic countries. Formed in 1952, it has 87 representatives from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden as well as from the autonomou ...

's Swedish delegation, and the pre-term in office she worked for the Committee on the Constitution as a member. After the 2010 general election, Lööf was elected chairman of the National Post-Election Analysis Group the Centre Party appointed. The Analysis Group presented its report in January 2011. The same year she became Spokesperson for Financial and Economic Affairs of her party. On 31 August 2011 the Centre Partys Nomination Commité proposed Annie Lööf as the Party President and on the party's congress in

Åre Åre () is a locality and one of the leading Scandinavian ski resorts situated in Åre Municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden with 3,200 inhabitants in 2018. It is, however, not the seat of the municipality, which is Järpen. 25% of the local eco ...

on 23 September she was elected by

acclamation An acclamation is a form of election that does not use a ballot. It derives from the ancient Roman word ''acclamatio'', a kind of ritual greeting and expression of approval towards imperial officials in certain social contexts. Voting Voice vot ...

Leader of the Centre Party, 2011–2022

Lööf was elected leader and party president on 23 September 2011, succeeding

Maud Olofsson Maud Elisabeth Olofsson (born ''Olsson'', 9 August 1955) is a former Swedish politician who was the leader of the Swedish Centre Party from 2001 to 2011, Minister for Enterprise and Energy from 2006 to 2011 and Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden ...

, at the party congress in

. She thus became the Centre Party's youngest-ever party leader. On 29 September 2011 Lööf succeeded

as Minister for Business and Enterprise. She also saw to replace Minister for the Environment Andreas Carlgren with Lena Ek, former MEP, and gave birth for to new cabinet post Minister for IT and Energy who

Anna-Karin Hatt Anna-Karin Hatt (born 7 December 1972) is a Swedish corporate leader and former politician. Since 2015, she is the CEO of Almega, the employers’ organisation for the Swedish service sector. She is also a member of the board at Alecta, Ratio In ...

(former candidate for the party leadership) was given. The Minister for Rural and Farming Affairs,

Eskil Erlandsson Lars Eskil Anders Erlandsson (born 25 January 1957) is a Swedish politician who served as Minister for Rural Affairs from 2010 to 2014, having previously served as Minister for Agriculture from 2006 to 2010. A member of the Centre Party, he was ...

kept his seat. During Almedalsveckan 2012, in her address at the Centre Party gathering, Lööf criticized the government of which she was a part for its inability to keep up the pace of reform that had been a leading part of the

Alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

platform in 2006, and urged a revival. "The joint project has lost momentum. Project embers have died down," she said. These points were met with fierce opposition from the other cabinet parties, mainly from the

Christian Democrats __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social ...

and the party secretary Acko Ankarberg. The speech also drew attention because of the caustic review by

Social Democrat Social democracy is a Political philosophy, political, Social philosophy, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocati ...

former minister of culture

Marita Ulvskog Marita Helena Ulvskog (born 4 September 1951) is a Swedish politician who served as Member of the European Parliament from 2009 until 2019. She is a member of the Social Democrats, part of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Ea ...

: "New speechwriter for Annie Lööf? unfortunately didn't help. Credibility none. Would work in

Top Model ''Top Model,'' also called ''Next Top Model,'' is a fashion-themed reality television show format produced in many countries throughout the world and seen in over 120 countries producing over 200 seasons, which are referred to as "cycles". T ...

, not in reality" she wrote on Twitter. Ulvskog later apologized for some of the wording. On 6 August 2012 Lööf dismissed Christina Lugnet, the Director-General of Tillväxtverket, after it had become known that Lugnet's

government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

had spent approximately 16 million SEK on mostly internal representation over a brief period of time: banquets, kick-offs, hotel stays for its personnel and conferences. This was out of bounds under Swedish law and by the agency's own rules. On 8 August, it became known that Lööf used taxpayers' money for a number of restaurant visits, including banquets for her staff. A memo was revealed to have amounted 20 000 SEK. The Centre Party has subsequently repaid these expenses to the treasury, as it was for party activities. After the parliamentary election in 2014, Lööf's trust figures raised dramatically. In 2017, Annie Lööf had the highest trust figures of any major political party leader in Sweden by Swedish voters. In June 2017, Lööf attended the Bilderberg Meeting in Chantilly, Virginia, in the United States. Following the inconclusive elections in 2018, the speaker of Sweden’s parliament

Andreas Norlén Per Olof Andreas Norlén (; born 6 May 1973) is a Swedish politician and member of the Moderate Party who has served as Speaker of the Riksdag since September 2018. He has been a Member of the Riksdag (MP) for Östergötland County (Riksdag consti ...

asked Lööf to explore the possibility of forming a new government. Löof subsequently tried to build support for a broad government which excluded the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party and kept intact the centre-right Alliance, a four-party bloc of which the Center is part. She abandoned her bid to form a new government one week later. In January 2019, she eventually led her party to abandon its traditional center-right allies and back Social Democrat leader

Stefan Löfven Kjell Stefan Löfven (; officially ''Löfvén''; born 21 July 1957) is a Swedish politician who serves as the Party of European Socialists, President of European Socialists since October 2022. He previously served as Prime Minister of Sweden fro ...

as Prime Minister. Following the government's defeat in the 2022 general election, in part due to Centre Party losses, Lööf announced her resignation as leader of the Centre Party on 15 September.

Other activities

Trilateral Commission The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973 principally by American banker and philanthropist David ...

, Member of the European Group * Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society, Member of the Advisory Council * Coompanion, Member of the Board of Directors

Personal life

Lööf is the daughter of Centre Party politician Hans-Göran Johansson, the former Mayor of

Värnamo Municipality Värnamo Municipality (''Värnamo kommun'') is a municipality in Jönköping County in southern Sweden, where the town Värnamo is seat. The municipality was created in 1971, when the ''City of Värnamo'' (itself instituted in 1920) was amalgam ...

. On 30 July 2011 Lööf married Carl-Johan Lööf at which point they took his mother's maiden name as surname. On 10 September 2015 she gave birth to a daughter named Ester. She had a second daughter, Saga, on 3 December 2019 who was born prematurely. They live in

Nacka Nacka () is the municipal seat of Nacka Municipality and part of Stockholm urban area in Sweden. The municipality's name harks back to a 16th-century industrial operation established by the Crown at Nacka farmstead where conditions for water mil ...

, Stockholm.

References

External links

*
Annie Lööf
at the

website * {{DEFAULTSORT:Loof, Annie 21st-century Swedish women politicians 1983 births Living people Lund University alumni Members of the Riksdag 2006–2010 Members of the Riksdag 2010–2014 Members of the Riksdag 2014–2018 Members of the Riksdag 2018–2022 Members of the Riksdag 2022–2026 Members of the Riksdag from the Centre Party (Sweden) People from Värnamo Municipality Women government ministers of Sweden Women members of the Riksdag