Erkki Liikanen

Erkki Liikanen Antero [ ɛrk ː i ː li kɑnɛn ] ( born September 19, 1950 in Mikkeli ) is a Finnish politician ( SDP). He's since July 2004 President of the Bank of Finland and thus a member of the Governing Council.

Erkki Liikanen studied at the University of Helsinki, where he earned a degree in political science with a specialization Economics.

Liikanen was from 1976 to 1979 Member of the Supervisory Board of Televa, a state-owned telecommunications company, and from 1983 to 1988 the Supervisory Board of Outokumpu, a multi-metal technology and society. In addition, he was from 1983 to 1987 Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee at the Bank of Finland, also decision-making body of the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development ( Sitra ). From 1987 to 1990 he was a member of the political science and Technology Council of Finland.

In 1972 Liikanen was elected to the Finnish Parliament, where he served until his appointment by the Foreign Ministry in 1990. He started the Culture Committee, which was also responsible for education and science. Later he became deputy chairman of the Agriculture Committee, then the Committee on Foreign Affairs. From 1987 to 1990 he held the post of finance minister.

In the period from 1990 to 1994, when Finland was negotiating accession to the European Union, he was the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Finland to the European Union. From 1995 to 1999 was responsible Liikanen Member of the European Commission on budgetary matters, personnel and administration. On 16 September 1999 he was appointed European Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society, he held this office until July 2004, three months before the official end of the Commission, held.

Since then, he has been president of the Finnish central bank and thus a member of the Governing Council.

Liikanen was chairman of the so-called Liikanen Commission, a set of EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier EU expert group on the regulation of large financial institutions. In a become known as Liikanen Report report, which was published in October 2012, the Commission proposed various changes in the banking sector, including a mandatory separation of proprietary trading and traditional banking business for universal banks.