Lena Ek – Agrarian lawyer

Profile of Sweden’s Minister of Environment

In Sweden, the wolves are back. After nearly half a century on the brink of extinction, they have begun to thrive again and, as wolves do, cause havoc among the local populations of sheep and reindeer, not to mention household pets. Even a few humans have suffered injury. The government, which has been doing its best to foster repopulation, is struggling to reconcile competing interests – those of livestock farmers, wildlife managers and animal rights activists – while at the same time protecting the wolves’ own genetic sustainability, given the risks of inbreeding among a population of just over 400. It is a tricky and sometimes nasty business. Hunters hired for culling have reportedly received death threats, and the European Commission has reprimanded Sweden for violating EU norms on protected species.

Lena Ek, who inherited this demanding brief in September 2011 when she became environment minister, has shown admirable circumspection. She spearheaded the establishment of an inquiry into a sustainable national policy on predatory animals, the final report of which was tabled on 26 August, and staunchly defends Sweden’s track record. “There are few countries in the world that have more information about their big carnivores than Sweden does,” she argues, adding that Sweden has probably spent more money per individual animal than any other nation.

The wolves have, in one sense, done Ek a favour. The controversy has given her the ideal platform to demonstrate her predilection for openness, compromise, and what she describes as “teamwork”. She is, in fact, particularly well equipped to tackle such a quintessential conundrum posed by Mother Nature. She was born and raised on her parents’ dairy farm in south-eastern Sweden, where the values of hard work, family, and social responsibility were deeply inculcated. Her mother was one of the first women in Sweden to gain a degree in agriculture, but Ek chose to pursue a law degree. “I wanted an academic education…and something to do with society,” she says.

After completing a master’s degree in international public law in 1985, Ek worked as a teacher and researcher at Lund University. At the time Swedes were considering European Union membership, and Ek, who frequently travelled to Brussels for research, established a reputation as one of the country’s most authoritative voices on the European project. Thus the Centre Party, a century-old green social-liberal movement, sought her assistance, which she willingly consented to give – but, already balancing being a mother with her career, on condition that she was placed at the bottom of any election list. To her surprise, she gained so many personal votes that she was forced to reconsider her vocation. “If my neighbours trusted me, I had to keep to my word, and that’s when I became a part-time mayor,” she says. That was in Valdemarsvik, where she had moved with her husband to help him run his family farm.

In January 1995 Sweden joined the EU, and Ek immediately plunged into the nuts-and-bolts business of procuring funds for municipal and rural development. With her expertise in law now matched by growing familiarity with finance, her political capital increased. In 1998, the Centre Party asked her to run for the Riksdag – the national legislative assembly in Sweden.

Sensing that she might have doubts – she had indicated her intention to return to academic research – party leaders made sure she won a parliamentary seat by putting her at the top of the party list. Though the centrists ended up in opposition, Ek was chosen for the finance committee, where she homed in on what had been her top priority since the start of her career: children’s and women’s issues.

Her position in the Centre Party is solid. She is one of 18 members of the party’s executive board and retains strong ties with the party’s influential wing for women, Centerkvinnorna. Moreover, Ek is untainted by scancal – as opposed to Heidi Hautala in Finland – which is not unimportant given the Nordic political culture that often leads to resignations at the slightest hint of impropreity.

In 2004, an opening to become an MEP arose and this time Ek did not hesitate. The decision could not have been easy – she had four children by then, the youngest not yet at school. But Ek, having climbed the municipal, regional and national ladder, saw the European Parliament as a “real challenge” at the top level in the hierarchy of power. “I always wanted to come back to Brussels, so for me it was fantastic,” recalls Ek, who became a leading negotiator for the ALDE group on major legislation such as the Third Energy Package and Europe 2020. “Once you understand how the wheels turn, you can have a lot of influence, even if you represent a country with only nine million people.”

Curriculum Vitae

1958: Born, Mönsterås

1978-85: Master’s degree in law, Lund University

1985-92: Researcher and lecturer, Lund University

1993-98: Chair of Östergötland district, Centre Party

1994-98: Municipal commissioner, Valdermarsvik

1999-: Member of Riksdag

2004

2004-11: Member of European Parliament

2006-09: Chair of Sällskapet Politik & Näringsliv (Society of Politics and Industry)

2007-09: Chair of Swedish Brain Power

2008-11: Board member, Swedish Environment Institute

2011-: Minister of Environment

Legislative work in the Parliament brought her additional extensive expertise in environmental affairs. Nature was always at the heart of Ek’s concerns, and her intensive work on emissions trading and climate change brought her full circle. The needs of the family farm broadened into the needs of all Europeans. “It doesn’t matter how big the cities are, you still need the clean water, the clean air, and the clean soil,” says Ek, who loves to spend free time walking in the woods and identifying wildflowers. For her, human rights are vitally linked with the environment: “Often, when there is an environmental catastrophe, it’s the poorest and the weakest who are hit the hardest.”

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Having hosted the first international climate conference in 1972, seen by many as the birth of the modern environmental movement, Swedes feel an instinctive need to remain trailblazers in recycling, biodiversity and emissions reduction.

Long-term, Sweden aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, arrange a phosphorus-free fleet by 2030, and become a climate-neutral country by 2050. Ek is confident that these targets can be met. “The precautionary principal is, for me, the key to everything,” she says, adding that for her that is the cornerstone of Swedish environmental law. She sees her core task as getting everyone involved. Environmental policy shouldn’t be “the icing on the cake,” she says. “It should be in every layer of the cake to make it successful.”