Heidi Hautala

Heidi Hautala

Heidi Anneli Hautala (born 14 November 1955 in Oulu) is a Finnish politician (Greens), currently serving as Minister for International Development and ownership steering issues in Jyrki Katainen's cabinet. She was a Member of the European Parliament from 1995 to 2003 and 2009 to 2011 where she chaired the Subcommittee on Human Rights 2009–2011. Hautala was the leader of the Finnish Green Party from 1987 to 1991, and a presidential candidate in 2000 and 2006. In the first round of the 2006 election she finished fourth of the eight candidates with a vote share of 3.5% (105,248 votes). She was a member of the national parliament from 1991 to 1995. After Finland joined the European Union (EU) in 1995, she was elected to the European Parliament. She returned to the national Parliament in the elections of 2003, and in 2009, she was re-elected to the European Parliament. She is a signatory of the 2010 Declaration on Crimes of Communism, a patron of its preceding conference, and was a member of the Reconciliation of European Histories Group as an MEP. She is currently the president of the Green European Foundation.

Hautala is the chairwoman of the Administrative Council of Neste Oil, a Finnish oil refining and marketing company producing mainly transportation fuels and other refined petroleum products.

Hautala currently continues to work closely with EU affairs as a member of the Grand Committee. In addition, she has chaired the Green parliamentary group and currently she is the Chair of the Legal Affairs Committee in the Finnish Parliament. Also she is a member of the Parliament's Speaker's Council. As well Hautala is Chairperson of the National Equality Commission (TANE). She advocates environmental responsibility, openness in politics, and global justice.

Heidi Hautala is engaged to work also in organizations on the side of her work in Finnish Parliament. She is former President of Service Centre for Development Cooperation and current Member of the executive bureau of Crisis Management Initiative which President is Martti Ahtisaari former President of Finland (1994–2000) and a United Nations diplomat and mediator, noted for his international peace work.

Hautala is the chairwoman of the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum, established in 2007 to promote the Finnish-Russian dialogue and strengthen the Russian civil society.

In 2001, Hautala successfully took the Council of the European Union to the European Court of Justice over access to a document on arms export rules. The Court ruled that the ministers should have considered publishing at least part of the document. The so-called "Hautala case" set a precedent in European law for access to documents.

Hautala has a master's degree in horticulture. She has one child, Jasper (b. 1981).