Steingrímur Jóhann Sigfússon (born 4 August 1955) is an

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

ic politician. He has been a member of the

Althing The (; ), anglicised as Althingi or Althing, is the Parliamentary sovereignty, supreme Parliament, national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest surviving parliament in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at ('Thing (assembly), thing ...

(Icelandic parliament) since 1983 and was the founding chairman of the Left-Green Movement (''Vinstri hreyfingin – grænt framboð'') from 1999 until 2013. He was the Minister for Agriculture and Communications from 1988 to 1991. He was Minister of Finance from 2009 to 2011. In 2011, he took on the roles of Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture and Minister of Economic Affairs. He was first elected as a member of the People's Alliance and helped found the Left-Green Movement after the merger of the People's Alliance into the more moderate

Social Democratic Alliance The Social Democratic Alliance (, ) is a Social democracy, social democratic List of political parties in Iceland, political party in Iceland. The party is positioned on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum and their ...

. Steingrímur was born in Gunnarsstaðir, a large sheep farm between Garður and Þórshöfn in the Þistilfjörður region of northeast Iceland ( Svalbarðshreppur municipality). In his younger days he was an avid sportsman, both track and field and also a volleyball player. On 16 January 2006, Steingrímur was injured in a car accident not far from Blönduós but later recovered. He supported the end of the US military presence in Iceland, but believed Iceland itself should have taken the initiative in ending this presence. Since September 2006, when US forces left Naval Air Station Keflavik, he has strongly opposed any possible development of an Icelandic army seeing the country's need for armed forces as practically non-existent. He believes that civilian institutions such as the

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

and the

coast guard A coast guard or coastguard is a Maritime Security Regimes, maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with cust ...

should be organized in order to provide the needed protection in the unlikely event of a major disturbance. In November 2006, he published the book ''Við öll – Íslenskt velferðarsamfélag á tímamótum'' ("All of Us – Icelandic Welfare Society at Crossroads"), laying out his political ideology.

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