Pekka Haavisto

Pekka Olavi Haavisto ( born March 23, 1958 in Helsinki) is a Finnish politician of the Party Green the Federation and the Minister for International Development in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet Katainen

Life

After leaving school, Pekka Haavisto engaged in politics and became a member of the Federal Open. From 1993 to 1995 he was chairman of this party. In the parliamentary elections in 1987, he was elected as an MP in the Finnish Parliament, where he served until 1995. In the first cabinet of the then Social Democratic Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen Haavisto was from 1995 to 1999 Minister of the Environment. Thus in 1995 he became the first minister of a Green Party in Europe.

From 1999 to 2005 Haavisto worked in various areas of responsibility for the United Nations. He led the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP ) in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Palestine and Sudan. He coordinated UNEP investigations because of the employed in the wars in the former Yugoslavia uranium munitions in Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia - Herzegovina and participated in the investigations of the United Nations in Baia -Mare dam break in Baia Mare, Romania, in part.

2005 Haavisto appointed as a special representative of the European Union in Sudan, where he took part in the peace talks in Darfur. In 2007, Haavisto was re-elected for the electoral district in Helsinki, the Finnish parliament as a deputy. In 2011 he was appointed as the Green League candidate for the 2012 presidential election. In the election on 22 January 2012, he gained 18.8 percent of the vote in second place, reaching the runoff election against Sauli Niinistö of the conservative National Coalition Party. Haavisto finally received at the meeting held on February 5, 2012 ballot 37.4 %, 62.6 % favorite Niinistö.

Since October 2013, Haavisto successor to Heidi Hautala, Office of the Minister for International Development in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Haavisto lives with his life partner Antonio Flores.