Former President of Finland, Tarja Holonen, discusses Finland's role in the European Union, its relations with NATO, and her own challenging foreign policy decisions, in a conversation with the Future of Diplomacy Project Faculty Director R. Nicholas Burns and Harvard students and faculty.
President Tarja Halonen is an Angelopoulos Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School in the spring of 2015. She became the first female head of state of the Republic of Finland with her election in March 2000 and was re-elected in 2006.
Tarja Halonen has served in three cabinets and her appointments have been: Minister at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in 1987-1990, Minister of Justice in 1990-1991, and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1995-2000. She was also Minister responsible for Nordic co-operation in 1989-91. During her time as Foreign Minister, Finland held for the first time the EU Presidency from July to December in 1999.
Tarja Halonen has also played an active role at the Council of Europe, first as Deputy-Chair of the Finnish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly from 1991 to 1995 and later in the Ministerial Committee. She was also a Member of the Committee of Wise Persons of the Council of Europe in 1998-99. During her presidency Tarja Halonen has served as co-chair of World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, appointed by International Labour Organization ILO, from 2002 to 2004. Since March 2009, she has served as the Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. In August 2010, Tarja Halonen was appointed co-chair of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
