Tomas Gunnar Tobé (born 16 February 1978) is a Swedish politician who serves as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

since the 2019 European Parliament election in Sweden. In the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

, Tobé is a Vice-Chair of the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

since 2024 and Chair of the Parliament's Committee on Development since 2019. He was Secretary-General of the

Moderate Party The Moderate Party ( , , M), commonly referred to as the Moderates ( ), is a Liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative* * * * * List of political parties in Sweden, political party in Sweden. The party generally supports tax cuts, the free ma ...

from 2015 to 2017.

Political career

Career in national politics

Tobé was elected to the

Swedish Riksdag The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportionally and serving, since 1994, f ...

in the 2006 general election. During his parliament, he served as chair of its Committee on Employment from 2010 to 2012; the Committee on Education from 2012 to 2014; and the Committee on Legal Affairs from 2018 to 2019. He was mentioned as possible successor for the

party leader In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party, either to a legislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a politica ...

ship after

Fredrik Reinfeldt John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced ; born 4 August 1965) is a Swedish economist, lecturer, former Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014 and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He was the last rotating Presi ...

, but declined and supported Anna Kinberg Batra. In March 2017 there was controversy around Tobé after it was revealed that he had used public funds for wine purchases and personal trips. On 2 June 2017, he was removed from his position as Secretary-General by

Anna Kinberg Batra and appointed Shadow Minister for Justice and Chairman of the Parliament's Committee on Justice.

Member of the European Parliament

Since the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) we ...

, Tobé has been serving as chairman of the

Committee on Development The Committee on Development (Commission du développement, DEVE) is a committee of the European Parliament responsible for promoting, implementing and monitoring the development and cooperation policy of the European Union, notably talks with deve ...

. In this capacity, he co-chairs (alongside David McAllister) the Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG), which oversees the Parliament’s election observation missions. Tobé is also a member of the

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

. On the committee, he has been serving as

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

on asylum and migration since 2020. In addition to his committee assignments, Tobé is part of the Parliament’s delegations for relations to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and to the Parliamentary Assembly of the

Union for the Mediterranean The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM; , ''Al-Ittiḥād min ajl al-Mutawasseṭ'') is an intergovernmental organization of 43 member states from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: the 27 Member state of the European Union, EU member states (i ...

. He also belongs to the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights and the European Parliament Intergroup on Children’s Rights. After the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, Tobé supported Swedish membership in

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

. In March 2024, Tobé was one of twenty MEPs to be given a "Rising Star" award at ''

The Parliament Magazine ''The Parliament Magazine'' is a monthly EU politics, policy and culture magazine. Its website, www.theparliamentmagazine.eu, is a forum for discussion on the latest developments in EU politics and policy, featuring regular contributions from pr ...

s annual MEP Awards He was re-elected in the 2024 European Parliament election in Sweden.

Personal life

Tobé is married to Markus Tobé with whom he has twins born via

surrogacy Surrogacy is an arrangement whereby a woman gets pregnant and gives birth on behalf of another person or couple who will become the child's legal parents after birth. People pursue surrogacy for a variety of reasons such as infertility, danger ...

.Tomas Tobé become father to twins
Revived 19 December 2014

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tobe, Tomas Members of the Riksdag from the Moderate Party Living people 1978 births Swedish gay politicians People from Gävle MEPs for Sweden 2019–2024 Moderate Party MEPs LGBTQ members of the European Parliament MEPs for Sweden 2024–2029