Sirpa Pietikäinen

Sirpa Pietikäinen
Minister for the Environment
In office
26 April 1991  13 April 1995
Prime Minister Esko Aho
Preceded by Kaj Bärlund
Succeeded by Pekka Haavisto
Personal details
Born (1959-04-19) 19 April 1959
Parikkala, Finland
Political party National Coalition Party
Spouse(s) Tapio Määttä
Alma mater Aalto University

Sirpa Pietikäinen (born April 19, 1959 in Parikkala, Finland) is a Finnish politician from the National Coalition Party. She is a Member of the European Parliament since 2008, and re-elected in 2009.

She was in the Hämeenlinna town council (1981-1992). She is a former Member of Finnish Parliament, former Minister for the Environment (1991-1995). Pietikäinen was the Chair of Finnish United Nations Association between 1996 and 2007. Pietikäinen was the World Federation of United Nations Associations chairwoman between 2000 and 2004. She has also worked for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and One World International.

Pietikäinen has an MBA degree from Helsinki School of Economics. She has received The Knight Commander's Order of the White Rose of Finland (1993). She speaks Finnish, English, French, Swedish and German.[1]

Her articles have been published in:

In 2003, Pietikäinen was convicted of aggravated drunk driving after moving her car in a parking lot at midnight. She was fined, given a suspended prison sentence and banned from driving for five months.[2]

Thoughts about Europe

Pietikäinen sees the European Union should proceed towards a Europe of people, which guarantees the respect of human rights, equal opportunities for all, social inclusion and the access to high quality services. In her opinion, the Union needs to further involve organisations and citizens in the community decision-making process, from the preparatory phase of the work onwards. Also the Union should be more transparent.[3]

Ms. Pietikäinen sees the objectives and strategies, such as the Lisbon strategy, are not enough. The Union would need an enhanced surveillance of the financial sector, obligations in terms of solvability as well as transparency in Europe and worldwide. She also supports reinforcing cooperation and negotiation procedures between employees and trade unions, in order to contribute to the stabilisation of growth. The future growth, in her opinion, spurs from investments in the education and research sectors, in particular in green business.[4]

When it comes to the environment, Ms. Pietikäinen sees Political will is at the core of the environmental challenges: Europe should build an ecologically sustainable model in terms of way of life, transport, production and consumption, as well as the economic and legislative tools which will allow the shift towards this model.[5]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sirpa Pietikäinen.
Political offices
Preceded by
Kaj Bärlund
Minister for the Environment
1991–1995
Succeeded by
Pekka Haavisto


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, April 22, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.