Anders Borg | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Anders Borg in 2006 | |
| Minister for Finance | |
| In office 6 October 2006 – 3 October 2014 | |
| Prime Minister | Fredrik Reinfeldt |
| Preceded by | Pär Nuder |
| Succeeded by | Magdalena Andersson |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Anders Erik Borg (1968-01-11)11 January 1968 (age 57) Stockholm, Sweden |
| Political party | Moderate |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | Uppsala University, Stockholm University |
| Occupation | Economist |
Anders Erik Borg (born 11 January 1968) is a Swedish politician who served asMinister for Finance in theSwedish government from 2006 to 2014. He is a member of the SwedishModerate Party.
Borg was born inSkarpnäck, Stockholm, but grew up inNorrköping,Östergötland County. He became a member of theModerate Youth League in the upper secondary school in Norrköping. From 1988 to 1991 he studiedpolitical science,economic history, and philosophy atUppsala University. He also attendedStockholm University from 1995 to 1997, where his studies in economics included participation in graduate level courses despite the fact that he had not completed a bachelor's degree. He has yet to earn an academic degree.
During his period at Uppsala University, Borg was chairman of theUppsala Student Union as well as the conservativeHeimdal Association (Swedish:Föreningen Heimdal). From 1990 to 1991 he was vice chairman of theConfederation of Swedish Conservative and Liberal Students. Also as a teenager, Borg was alibertarian and advocate ofdrug legalization, on one occasion writing a newspaper article calling for drug decriminalization in Sweden.[1][2] He has admitted to smokingcannabis in his youth.[3]
From 1990 to 1991, Borg was an editorial writer for the newspaperSvenska Dagbladet. Following the centre-right parties' victory in the1991 general election, Borg became a Political Adviser at the Prime Minister's Office with responsibility for coordination of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Public Administration, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education and Science. From 1993 to 1994 he served as a Political Adviser to Prime MinisterCarl Bildt.
Following defeat of the Moderate Party in the1994 general election, Borg worked in the private bank sector. From 1995 to 1998 he worked at the company Transferator Alfred Berg as responsible for economic and political analysis. From 1998 to 1999 he was chief economist at ABN Amro Bank in Stockholm and from 1999 to 2001 he was head of the Economic Analysis Department atSkandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) in Stockholm.Klas Eklund, senior economist at SEB, said that Borg "is very quick, he reads profusely, he soaks up information like a sponge and he's very receptive, very intelligent. Before he became minister of finance, he was a technocrat, a brilliant technocrat. He was like a volcano, always erupting with new ideas."[1]
From 2001 to 2002, he served as an adviser on monetary policy issues to the executive board of the Swedish central bankRiksbanken. He was recruited as chief economist of the Moderate Party in 2003 byBo Lundgren and stayed in the team of the newly elected party leaderFredrik Reinfeldt. He also served as a member of the board of theSwedish Labour Market Administration (Swedish:Arbetsmarknadsstyrelsen) from 2005 to 2006.
Following the victory in the2006 general election, Borg was appointedMinister for Finance in the newcentre-right cabinet led byPrime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, that assumed office on 6 October 2006.
Borg has been recognised as the mastermind behind the new Swedish government's economic doctrine, focusing onproactive measures against unemployment: an incremental dismantling of the social democraticwelfare state, with larger self-financing of welfare systems, lower taxes and fewer benefits as the way to create new motivation to work and more business opportunities andcreation of jobs. He developed theseNew Classical Economics policies in his role as chief economist in the Moderate Party.
On 5 September 2007,Minister for DefenceMikael Odenberg resigned from the cabinet due to disagreement with Borg regarding funds for theSwedish Armed Forces.[4]
On 29 November 2008, Borg, in an interview on SwedishTV4, criticized US President-electBarack Obama's economic agenda calling it "untenable".[5]
Although his policies have been described as economically liberal, Borg has a different view. "One can probably call me a quite pragmatic politician. For me, the highest priority is to make sure that we have sound public finances."[1]
Borg was advisor to theFinnish government from 2014 to 2015. He was called for this work by the Moderate Party's Finnish sister party the National Coalition Party and its companion the Centre Party of Finland. The purpose was to use the reputation of Sweden and Swedes in marketing unpopular policies to Finnish people in a situation whereInternational Monetary Fund was in bad light due to its operations in Greece and Spain.
In 2015, Borg is deputy chairman ofInvestment AB Kinnevik andMillicom. He resigned as deputy chairman of technology investment group Kinnevik and as adviser toCitigroup 2017 amid a scandal over his allegedly drunken behavior at a party.[6]In 2018 Borg joinedIPsoft as Senior Advisor, with main role to promote the company'sAI platform Amelia.[7]
Borg was previously married to Susanna "Sanna" Borg (née Ölander), with whom he has three children. He used to live with his family inBie,Katrineholm Municipality,Södermanland County. Borg has said that he will serve only two terms as Finance Minister, ultimately to spend more time with his family. Indeed, he describes his government service as "conscription," having never held an elected office.[1] Borg was in a relationship withDominika Peczynski, a PR professional and 1990s pop music star with her former bandArmy of Lovers.[8] They married on 3 November 2018.[9] On 22 June 2022, Peczynski announced that she and Borg had filed for divorce without "time for reflection", meaning immediately.[10]
Unlike most of the Moderate Party members of the cabinet, Borg describes himself as afeminist.[11] In July 2017, Borg was involved in a scandal due to his behaviour at a party in Stockholm, where he, heavily intoxicated, was alleged to have acted in an extremely vulgar, invasive and obscene manner, showing off his private parts among other things.[12] He later apologised for this incident, claiming he had had a "blackout", "was under large pressure", and did not recall the events in question.[13]
| Government offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Minister for Finance 2006–2014 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
