Profile
Minister of Defence Stefan Wallin
Stefan “Steffi” Wallin was born on 1 June 1967 in Vaasa. His father was a bookseller (died in 1981) and his mother worked as a museum guide.
Stefan Wallin went to school at the Onkilahti elementary school, Vikinga and Vasa Övningskolan comprehensive schools and took his matriculation examination in Vasa Övningskolan upper secondary school in 1986.
In his student years, Stefan Wallin took part both in student politics and activities of the Svensk Ungdom youth organisation of the Swedish People’s Party. He also managed to graduate in six year as Master of Social Sciences. In the spring of 1994 he compiled the thesis for his Master's degree on the theme “Sfp och Lex Kekkonen” (The Swedish People’s Party and Lex Kekkonen). The thesis examined the way the Swedish People’s Party in 1972– 1973 first opposed and then grudgingly supported the emergency law by virtue of which President Kekkonen’s term of office was continued without the usual electoral college vote.
After graduation, Wallin soon engaged in national politics. In the summer of 1994 he was recruited as Special Adviser to the Minister of Transport, Ole Norrback, who was then Party Leader of the Swedish People’s Party. After the parliamentary election of 1995, Mr Wallin transferred to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs where Ole Norrback acted as the Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade. Three years later, in 1998, he left for the Ministry of the Interior and acted as an Adviser to Jan-Erik Enestam, the new Party Leader of the Swedish People’s Party. After the parliamentary election of 1999, Mr Wallin was an Adviser to Mr Enestam at the Ministry of Defence for more than a year.
Stefan Wallin stood for election in the 1999 parliamentary election in the Vaasa electoral district. He received 5 799 votes. With 370 more votes he would have been elected as Member of Parliament.
In the autumn of 2000, Mr Wallin decided to leave politics behind and return to journalism, a field in which he had been active back in his student days. The family had their first-born daughter that year and Wallin needed more regularity in his daily life. Åbo Underrättelser, the oldest newspaper in Finland, welcomed Wallin as Deputy Editor-in-Chief and local reporter. Wallin enjoyed working in this position for nearly five years. During that time, the family grew with another daughter.
In late winter 2005, Mr Wallin was offered a position as State Secretary at the Ministry of the Environment. In accepting this position, he made clear that he had now returned to politics and was totally devoted to it. In June 2006, he was elected with a clear majority of votes as the new Party Leader of the Swedish People’s Party, succeeding Jan-Erik Enestam. In January 2007 he accepted the post of Minister of the Environment. In the 2007 parliamentary elections, Mr Wallin gained the most votes in the electoral district of Southwest Finland. His ministerial duties were continued as Minister of Culture and Sport between 2007-2011.
In the 2011 elections, Mr Wallin was elected for his second term in Parliament with more than 12,000 votes. After a long process of government formation talks, he was appointed Minister of Defence. That means that Mr Wallin has served as a minister in four Governments and as a special adviser during three Governments.
Mr Wallin completed his military service in Nyland Brigade and the Reserve Officer School in Hamina in 1986-87. He now has the rank of captain in the reserve.
In 1995 Mr Wallin married Elina Pirjatanniemi, Professor of Law. She comes from Tampere but the couple met at the Åbo Akademi University where they both studied political science and international law.
In his spare time, Mr Wallin is a large-scale consumer of newspapers and magazines and enjoys reading literature. He is also interested in various registers. Mr Wallin takes an interest in challenging cooking and going to the gym and is a fan of English premier league football. His favourite team is Aston Villa from Birmingham.
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