Carl Bildt

Nils Daniel Carl Bildt (born 15 July 1949) is a Swedish politician and diplomat who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994. He was the leader of the Moderate Party from 1986 to 1999. Bildt served as Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2014, and as Member of Parliament from 1979 to 2001.

Bildt had been noted internationally as a mediator in the Yugoslav wars, serving as the European Union's Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia from June 1995, co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference in November 1995 and High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from December 1995 to June 1997, immediately after the Bosnian War. From 1999 to 2001, he served as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Balkans. Since 2021, Bildt also has been the World Health Organization's Special Envoy for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT Accelerator).

Early life and education

Bildt was born on 15 July 1949 in Halmstad, Halland, to an old Danish-Norwegian-Swedish noble family, the Bildt family, traditionally domiciled in Bohus county. His grandfather's grandfather, Gillis Bildt, was a Conservative politician and diplomat, long-time Ambassador to the German Empire and Prime Minister of Sweden 1888–1889, mainly remembered for his protectionist trade policies.

Bildt's father Daniel Bildt (1920–2010) was a major in the reserves of the now defunct Halland Regiment and a bureau director in the now defunct Civil Defense Board's Education Bureau. Daniel Bildt married Kerstin Andersson-Alwå in 1947. Carl Bildt's brother, Nils, was born in 1952. Bildt was married to Kerstin Zetterberg from 1974 to 1975; to Mia Bohman (daughter of former Moderate party leader and Minister of Economy, Gösta Bohman) from 1984 to 1997; and, since 1998, to Anna Maria Corazza. Bildt has three children; two from his second marriage and one from his third marriage.

Bildt attended Stockholm University.

Early career

In May 1968 Bildt opposed the occupation of the Student Union Building by leftist political forces and co-founded the Borgerliga Studenter – Opposition '68 group which went on to win the Student Union elections in Stockholm for a number of years. He served as chairman of the FMSF Confederation of Swedish Conservative and Liberal Students, a centre-right student organisation, in the early 1970s, and also chaired European Democrat Students, bringing together like-minded centre-right student organisations from across Europe.

When the non-socialist formed government in 1976, Bildt served as the head of the Policy Coordinating Office in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and close collaborator to the party leader and Minister of Economy Gösta Bohman. Bildt became a Member of Parliament in 1979, although he served instead as State Secretary for Policy Coordination in the reformed non-socialist government after that election.

As an MP in the early eighties, he became noted as an incisive and combative debater on foreign affairs. He was a member of the Submarine Defence Commission investigating the 1982 incursions of foreign submarines in the Stockholm archipelago and naval base areas, and often found himself pitted against prime minister Olof Palme. Bildt was elected leader of the Moderate Party in 1986, succeeding Ulf Adelsohn.

In 1991, the Social Democrats were defeated by a four-party coalition led by Bildt's Moderate Party.

Prime Minister

On 4 October 1991, Bildt became the first conservative prime minister in Sweden in 61 years, leading a four-party coalition government. The policies of his government aimed at giving Sweden a "new start" in the middle of a rapidly mounting economic crisis caused by a speculation bubble in housing, focusing on privatising and de-regulating the economy in order to improve the conditions for big businesses.

Long a champion of European integration and Sweden's participation in this, negotiating membership in the European Union was a priority for the Bildt premiership. The preceding Social Democratic government had, as part of an emergency economic crisis package in the autumn of 1990, done a sudden U-turn, abandoned its previous opposition and in the summer of 1991 submitted a formal application for membership in the EU.

Benefiting also from his close links with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Bildt was able to initiate and conclude membership negotiations with the EU in record time, signing the Treaty of Accession at the EU summit in Corfu on 23 June 1994. The accession was supported by a referendum in November, and Sweden entered the EU as full member on 1 January 1995, thus fulfilling a key part of the platform of the Bildt government.

By that time his governing coalition had lost its majority in the September 1994 elections, in spite of his Moderate party making slight gains.

The economic program of the government was focused primarily on a series of structural reforms aiming at improving competitiveness and improving growth. Economic reforms were enacted, including voucher schools, liberalizing markets for telecommunications and energy, privatizing publicly owned companies and health care, contributing to substantially liberalizing the Swedish economy.

These reforms were highly controversial at the time, and the government also had to deal with a rapid increase in unemployment as well as public deficits during 1991 and 1992. The period was marked by a severe economic crisis. These problems were reinforced by the economic crisis in other European countries and the crisis within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. As a result, Sweden in November 1992 was forced to abandon its policy of a fixed exchange rate and allow the Swedish crown to float freely. As part of the effort to handle the economic crisis, the government was able to conclude an agreement with the Social Democratic opposition on some of its expenditure-cutting measures.

By 1994 the economy was registering strong growth, and the deficits were declining, although unemployment was still at levels higher than in 1991.

Prior to becoming Prime Minister, Bildt had been severely anti-Soviet Union and a strong supporter of the three Baltic nations, and during his period as PM devoted considerable efforts to trying to assist the three newly-independent Baltic states in handling their immediate challenges in the form of the withdrawal of ex-Soviet forces and strategic installations, as well as deciding on sensitive issues of citizenship. In this he worked closely together with the leaders of the three countries as well as with the Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev.

His government also had to handle a large increase in refugee flows from primarily the war in Bosnia, defending a liberal approach against the anti-immigration New Democracy party that had entered parliament in 1991.

Bildt was an early champion of the Internet and information technologies. He led the first IT Commission in 1994, and in that year also had the first exchange of emails between two heads of government with US President Bill Clinton.

The government's effectiveness was sometimes hampered by in-fighting, most memorably over the construction of the Øresund Bridge, which led to the departure of the leader of the Centre Party Olof Johansson from the government, paving the way for the government to take the decision to approve the construction of the link.

Bildt continued to serve as leader of the Moderate party - and thus of the opposition - until 1999, when he was succeeded as party leader by Bo Lundgren

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