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Annie Marie Therése Lööf (, ; born 16 July 1983) is a Swedish politician and lawyer. She was
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 members of the Riksdag. In Swedish, an MP is us ...
, representing her home constituency of
Jönköping County Jönköping County () 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 September 2017. The capita ...
, from 2006 to 2023, and leader of the Centre Party from September 2011 to February 2023. Lööf served as Minister for Enterprise from 2011 to 2014, in the Reinfeldt Cabinet.


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 (Sweden), Lagan just north of the lake Vidöstern. It is the seat of Värnamo Municipality and has 19,822 inhab ...
. 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. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...
''.
During her last year at Finnvedens Secondary School in Värnamo, where she studied social sciences, she developed an interest in politics. In her youth, she was a soccer goalkeeper, playing for
IFK Värnamo IFK Värnamo is a Swedish professional Association football, football club located in Värnamo. The club plays in the Allsvenskan, the top tier of Swedish football. The most famous player from the club is Jonas Thern, who was captain of the Swede ...
's women's team.


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 , image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004 (cropped).jpg , image_size = 275px , caption = View of the complex from Long Island City in 2021; from left to right: the Secretariat, Conference, and General Assembly buildi ...
in New York. After the election she enrolled to study law at
Lund University Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...
and was awarded a professional degree in law ( LL.M.) in August 2011.


Member of Parliament, 2006–2023

In the general election of 2006 Lööf was elected to the
Riksdag The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...
, being at that time the youngest member of the legislature. In January 2007, together with her colleague Fredrick Federley, 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 or 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 vi ...
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 and a vicepresident of the Committee on Justice and first Deputy House Leader 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 (, 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 authorities and state-owned companie ...
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, borough 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 autonomo ...
'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 Urban areas in Sweden, 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 Järpe ...
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, 2011–2023

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 Swede ...
, at the party congress in
Åre Åre () is a Urban areas in Sweden, 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 Järpe ...
. She thus became the Centre Party's youngest-ever party leader. On 29 September 2011, Lööf succeeded
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 Swede ...
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 (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 people, Swedish politician who served as Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Rural Affairs from 2010 to 2014, having previously served as Minister for Agriculture from 2006 to 20 ...
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 sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...
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 and the
party secretary In politics, a party secretary is a senior official within a political party with responsibility for the organizational and daily political work. In most parties, the party secretary is second in rank to the party leader (or party chairman). In s ...
Acko Ankarberg Johansson. The speech also drew attention because of the caustic review by
Social Democrat Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...
former minister of culture Marita Ulvskog: "New speechwriter for Annie Lööf? unfortunately didn't help. Credibility none. Would work in Top Model, 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 agency or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government (bureaucracy) that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, s ...
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. 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 Parliament (Sweden), member of parliament (MP) for Öste ...
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 has served as the President of European Socialists since October 2022. He previously served as Prime Minister of Sweden from October 2014 to November 20 ...
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. She was succeeded by Muharrem Demirok on 2 February 2023.


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. 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 mi ...
, Stockholm.


References


External links

*
Annie Lööf
at the
Riksdag The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...
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 Women government ministers of Sweden Women members of the Riksdag