Annie Lööf | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lööf in April 2019 | |
| Leader of theCentre Party | |
| In office 23 September 2011 – 2 February 2023 | |
| Party secretary | Michael Arthursson |
| Preceded by | Maud Olofsson |
| Succeeded by | Muharrem Demirok |
| Minister for Enterprise | |
| In office 29 September 2011 – 3 October 2014 | |
| Prime Minister | Fredrik Reinfeldt |
| Preceded by | Maud Olofsson |
| Succeeded by | Mikael Damberg |
| Member of theRiksdag | |
| In office 17 September 2006 – 19 February 2023 | |
| Constituency | Jönköping County |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Annie Marie Therése Johansson (1983-07-16)16 July 1983 (age 42) Värnamo, Sweden |
| Political party | Centre |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent |
|
| Alma mater | Lund University (LL.M.) |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Website | annieloof |
Annie Marie Therése Lööf (née Johansson,[ˈǎnːɪmaˈriːtɛˈreːsˈløːvˈjûːanˌsɔn]ⓘ; born 16 July 1983) is a Swedish former politician and lawyer. She wasMember of the Riksdag, representing her home constituency ofJönköping County, from 2006 to 2023, and leader of theCentre Party from September 2011 to February 2023.[1] Lööf served asMinister for Enterprise from 2011 to 2014, in theReinfeldt Cabinet.
Annie Lööf was born and raised in the small village of Maramö, nearVärnamo.[2] 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 forIFK Värnamo's women's team.[3]
At the end of 2001 Lööf joined the Centre Party. During the2002 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 theUN Headquarters in New York.[4] After the election she enrolled to study law atLund University and was awarded a professional degree in law (LL.M.) in August 2011.
In thegeneral election of 2006 Lööf was elected to theRiksdag, being at that time the youngest member of the legislature.[5]
In January 2007, together with her colleagueFredrick Federley, Lööf initiated the Liberal Group, a network of liberal-minded people both inside and outside the Riksdag. She has also been thevice president ofCUF. For several years she served on the board of the Nordic Centre Youth Federation, Scandinavia's second largest youth organization.[citation needed]
In 2008 Lööf was awarded the "Young European Leadership Program" grant from the United States Embassy.[citation needed]
Before she became a minister and party leader, Annie Lööf was member of the Committee on Finance, theWar Delegation and a vicepresident of theCommittee on Justice and first DeputyHouse 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 theNational Defence Radio Establishment activities.[citation needed]
During her two terms, she has been active in municipal politics in Värnamo, as deputy of theCity Council 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 theNordic Council's Swedish delegation, and the pre-term in office she worked for the Committee on the Constitution as a member.[citation needed]
After the2010 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 becameSpokesperson for Financial and Economic Affairs of her party.[6] On 31 August 2011, the Centre Partys Nomination Commité proposed Annie Lööf as the Party President and on the party's congress inÅre on 23 September she was elected byacclamation.[7]
Lööf was elected leader and party president on 23 September 2011, succeedingMaud Olofsson, at the party congress inÅre. She thus became the Centre Party's youngest-ever party leader.
On 29 September 2011, Lööf succeededMaud Olofsson asMinister for Business and Enterprise. She also saw to replaceMinister for the EnvironmentAndreas Carlgren withLena Ek, formerMEP, and gave birth for to new cabinet postMinister for IT and Energy whoAnna-Karin Hatt (former candidate for the party leadership) was given. TheMinister for Rural and Farming Affairs,Eskil Erlandsson kept his seat.
DuringAlmedalsveckan 2012, in her address at theCentre 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 theAlliance platform in 2006, and urged a revival. "The joint project has lost momentum. Project embers have died down," she said.[8] These points were met with fierce opposition from the other cabinet parties, mainly from theChristian Democrats and theparty secretaryAcko Ankarberg Johansson.[9] The speech also drew attention because of the caustic review bySocial Democrat former minister of cultureMarita Ulvskog: "New speechwriter for Annie Lööf? unfortunately didn't help. Credibility none. Would work inTop Model, not in reality" she wrote on Twitter.[10] Ulvskog later apologized for some of the wording.
On 6 August 2012, Lööf dismissedChristina Lugnet, the Director-General ofTillväxtverket, after it had become known that Lugnet'sgovernment agency had spent approximately 16 millionSEK on mostly internal representation over a brief period of time: banquets, kick-offs, hotel stays for its personnel and conferences.[11] This was out of bounds underSwedish law and by the agency's own rules.[12]
On 8 August, it became known that Lööf used taxpayers' money for a number of restaurant visits, including banquets for her staff.[13] A memo was revealed to have amounted 20 000SEK.[14] TheCentre Party has subsequently repaid these expenses to the treasury, as it was for party activities.[15]
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.[16][17]
Following the inconclusiveelections in 2018, the speaker of Sweden’s parliamentAndreas Norlén asked Lööf to explore the possibility of forming a new government.[18] 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.[19] She abandoned her bid to form a new government one week later.[20] In January 2019, she eventually led her party to abandon its traditional center-right allies and back Social Democrat leaderStefan Löfven as Prime Minister.[2]
Following thegovernment's defeat in the2022 general election, in part due to Centre Party losses, Lööf announced her resignation as leader of the Centre Party on 15 September.[21] She was succeeded byMuharrem Demirok on 2 February 2023.[22]
Lööf is the daughter of Centre Party politicianHans-Göran Johansson, the former Mayor ofVärnamo Municipality. On 30 July 2011 Lööf married Carl-Johan Lööf at which point they took his mother's maiden name as surname.[24] On 10 September 2015 she gave birth to a daughter named Ester.[25][26] She had a second daughter, Saga, on 3 December 2019 who was born prematurely.[27][28] They live inNacka, Stockholm.[29]
Media related toAnnie Lööf at Wikimedia Commons
(in Swedish)| Honorary titles | ||
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| Preceded by | Baby of the House 2006–2010 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of the Swedish Centre Party 2011–2023 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Minister for Enterprise 2011–2014 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
