Cecilia Malmström

Cecilia Malmström
European Commissioner for Home Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 9 February 2010
President	José Manuel Barroso
Preceded by	Jacques Barrot
Minister for European Union Affairs
In office 6 October 2006 – 22 January 2010
Prime Minister	Fredrik Reinfeldt
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Birgitta Ohlsson
Personal details
Born	15 May 1968 (1968-05-15) Stockholm, Sweden
Political party	Liberal People's Party
Alma mater	University of Paris University of Gothenburg
Signature
Website	Official website

Anna Cecilia Malmström (born 15 May 1968) is a Swedish politician currently serving as European Commissioner for Home Affairs in the Barroso Commission. Prior to her appointment as commissioner, she had served as a Member of the European Parliament 1999–2006 and as Swedish Minister for European Union Affairs 2006–2010. She is a member of the Liberal People's Party, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

Early life

Malmström was born in Brännkyrka församling in Stockholm but grew up in Gothenburg and in France (where she studied literature in 1987 at the University of Paris. She has also worked at Stuttgart and Barcelona. She currently resides in Lindholmen, Gothenburg, with her husband and twins. She speaks Swedish, English, Catalan, Spanish and French fluently, and a good standard German and Italian.

Malmström was a student at Gothenburg University from 1992 to 1999: assistant researcher (1994); PhD in political science with thesis titled The Region, Power and Glory: Regional Parties in Western Europe (1998); Lecturer at the Department of Government (1998–99). She has researched and taught in European politics, regionalism, immigration, and terrorism. Malmström has been a member of the Liberal Party since the late 1980s, sitting as party executive since 1997, and was a member of in the Västra Götaland Regional Council from 1998–2001. In 2007, when Jan Björklund was elected party leader, she was appointed first vice party chairman.

MEP (1999–2006)

In 1999 Malmström was elected as an MEP for Sweden and she was reelected in 2004. During her tenure she served on the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Constitutional Affairs, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and also on the subcommittees for Human Rights and Security & Defence. She was also vice chair of the Parliament's delegations to Hungary (before it joined in 2004) and Croatia.

During her time as MEP she also initiated the oneseat.eu web campaign, which aims to make the European Parliament permanently seated in Brussels. It was the first such petition to gain one million signature, a nod to the right of petition under the Treaty of Lisbon.

European Affairs Minister (2006–2010)

Following the 2006 Swedish elections which saw the victory of the centre-right coalition of Fredrik Reinfeldt, Malmström returned to Sweden to take up the job of Minister for European Affairs in Reinfeldt's cabinet on 6 October 2006. This included institutional issues, review of the EU budget, Baltic Sea Strategy, the Lisbon Strategy and preparing for the then-upcoming Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Malmström supports Swedish adoption of the euro currency and in August 2007 she was one of the politicians calling for another referendum on euro membership (first was in 2003). "We respect the result of the referendum, of course, but still think that one should be able to argue for something one believes in ... A lot had changed since the 2003 referendum ... Slovenia has joined, Malta and Cyprus are joining at the beginning of next year. Next year, at least two Baltic countries will join. In 2010–11 there could be eight or nine new members. The more members there are, the greater the political price of being outside, because we can't make a difference ... Sweden had lost out economically by not joining the single European currency." She cited a report from the National Board of Trade: "We have lost 100 billion kronor in exports and the same amount in imports. Our trade with the eurozone would have been 13–14 percent greater if we had been members."

Commissioner for Home Affairs (2010–)

On 17 November 2009 Malmström was nominated by her government as the country's next European Commissioner. President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso offered her the role of Commissioner for Home Affairs which was created due to a liberal demand to split the previous portfolio which was joined with human rights. Despite this post being security oriented, Malmström made clear to MEPs she would not be a bad cop to the fundamental rights portfolio's good cop. She was approved by MEPs and took up the post on 10 February 2010.

One of her first initiatives as a EU commissioner was to propose a directive proposing stronger sanctions against sexual abuse of children, where on of the proposed actions was to oblige the EU Member States to block access to child pornography on the Internet. Critics interpret that as installation of a net censorship infrastructure not helping children, but being counterproductive and a dangerous threat to democracy. NGO's working for children's right such as Save the Children and NSPCC have, however, come out to defend the action. Malmström was quickly rewarded the nickname 'Censilia' on the social web and in – mostly German – dailies, a portmanteau word blending the word “censorship” and her given name (“Cecilia”) as a follow-up of the “Zensursula” nickname of the German minister Ursula von der Leyen who failed to establish similar filtering techniques in Germany due a decision to prioritise the deletion of illegal websites.

CV

Education

• 1987: Studies in literature at the University of Paris
• 1991: University degree, Gothenburg University
• PhD (1998) in political science, Gothenburg University
• 1989: Technical assistant with SKF in Paris (1986–1987) and Barcelona

Career

• 1989–1992: Psychiatric nurse, Lillhagen Hospital
• 1991–1992: Teacher of social studies, municipal adult education service
• 1992–1999: Researcher at Gothenburg University
• since 1997: Member of the Swedish Liberal Party executive
• since 2001: Leading member of the Party
• 1998–2001: Member of Västra Götaland regional council
• 1999–2006: Member of the European Parliament
• 1999–2006: Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
• 1999–2004: Member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs
• 1999–2004: Vice-Chairwoman of the Delegation to the EU-Hungary Joint Parliamentary Committee
• 2002–2004: ELDR Group spokeswoman on foreign affairs
• 1999–2006: Member of the ELDR/ALDE Group Bureau
• since 1999: Member of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska samfundet)
• since October 2006: Minister of European Affairs in Sweden
• Author of books, articles and essays on regional parties, regionalism, Spanish politics, European politics, immigration and terrorism, etc.

External links

• Cecilia Malmström Official Media Gallery
• Commissioner Malmström's page, European Commission
• Cecilia Malmström's pages, Swedish government
• Cecilia Malmström's Swedish EU Presidency blog

Political offices
Preceded by Position established	Minister for European Union Affairs 2006–2010	Succeeded by Birgitta Ohlsson
Preceded by Jan Kohout	President of the Council of the European Union 2009–2010	Succeeded by Miguel Ángel Moratinos
Preceded by Margot Wallström	Swedish European Commissioner 2010–present	Incumbent
Preceded by Jacques Barrot as European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security	European Commissioner for Home Affairs 2010–present