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Elina Valtonen | |
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.jpg) Valtonen in 2025 | |
| Minister for Foreign Affairs | |
| Assumed office 20 June 2023 | |
| Prime Minister | Petteri Orpo |
| Preceded by | Pekka Haavisto |
| Member of theFinnish Parliament forHelsinki | |
| Assumed office 4 July 2014 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Elina Maria Valtonen (1981-10-23)23 October 1981 (age 44) |
| Political party | National Coalition Party |
| Residence | Espoo |
| Alma mater | |
| Website | elinavaltonen |
Elina Maria Valtonen (formerlyLepomäki; born 23 October 1981)[1] is a Finnish politician who has served asMinister for Foreign Affairs under Prime MinisterPetteri Orpo since 2023. A member of theNational Coalition Party (NCP), she has represented the constituency ofUusimaa in theParliament of Finland since 2014.[2] In the2021 municipal election she won the second-highest number of votes inHelsinki and was elected a member of its city council.[3]
As a child, Valtonen lived with her family inBonn, West Germany; she completed A-levels (Reifeprüfung diploma) at theDeutsche Schule Helsinki.
Valtonen holds a master's degree in both technology andfinancial economics from theHelsinki University of Technology andHelsinki School of Economics.[2] She is a shareholder in several technology start-ups;[4] she chaired the board of the pro free-marketthink tank Libera from 2015 to 2021.[5]
Prior to entering politics in 2014, Valtonen spent 10 years ininvestment banking, as a director atRoyal Bank of Scotland and as a senior analyst atNordea.[6] She has developed a model for transforming thewelfare state into a digital sharing economy, called the Life Account.[7] In 2018, she participated in aBilderberg Meeting inTurin.
In April 2016, Valtonen announced her candidacy for the leadership of the National Coalition Party. In the first round of the leadership election on 11 June 2016 she received 15% of the vote and thus failed to be elected.[8] In September 2020, Valtonen was elected as a new deputy chair of the National Coalition Party.[9]
In theparliamentary elections of 2023, Valtonen raised the largest election campaign budget, 179,000 euros.[10] Her biggest funders wereChaim Poju Zabludowicz andBjörn Wahlroos.[11][12]
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In June 2023, she was appointedMinister for Foreign Affairs in theOrpo Cabinet.[13]
In January 2024, 79 Finnish diplomats signed a letter to Valtonen, criticising the official response to theIsraeli attacks on Gaza.[14]
Valtonen and her Nordic counterparts signed a joint letter in late October 2024 condemning Israel's planned bill that would seek to ban theUNRWA from operating in the country and in effect the Palestinian areas. Furthermore, they urged theKnesset to reconsider passing the bill.[15]
In April 2025, Valtonen metMarco Rubio inWashington, D.C.. Valtonen and Rubio discussedicebreaker cooperation between Finland and the United States. They also had a long discussion about Ukraine and Russia.
In October 2025, Valtonen visitedTbilisi, Georgia, in her capacity asOSCE Chairperson-in-Office, amidmass protests outside the Georgian Parliament. She briefly met with demonstrators. The visit occurred in the context of ongoing unrest over the controversialforeign agents law and growing criticism of the Georgian Dream government's perceived antidemocratic and anti-Western policies, which raised international concern about Georgia's democratic trajectory, as well as allegations of electoral fraud in the2024 Georgian parliamentary election, drawing international attention to concerns about democratic backsliding in Georgia.[16]
Valtonen has co-authored several reports on economics and the society such as "The Future of the Euro – The alternatives for Finland" (2014) and "The Life Account – A Social Security Reform" (2013).[7] In 2018, she published her bookVapauden voitto (Victory of Freedom,Otava), on how to reform the Nordic welfare model and theEuropean Union.
In September 2020, Valtonen filed for divorce from Jukka Lepomäki; in April 2021 she announced that she had changed her surname back to her maiden name.[18] Valtonen and Lepomäki had two children together.
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Sweden:Royal Order of the Polar Star, Commander Grand Cross (23 April 2024)[19]
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Minister for Foreign Affairs 2023–present | Incumbent |
| International | |
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| National | |
