Matti Vanhanen

Prime Minister of Finland
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 June 2003
President Tarja Halonen

Deputy Antti Kalliomäki
Eero Heinäluoma
Jyrki Katainen

Preceded by Anneli Jäätteenmäki

Minister of Defence
In office 17 April 2003 – 24 June 2003
Prime Minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki

Preceded by Jan-Erik Enestam

Succeeded by Seppo Kääriäinen

Member of the Finnish Parliament
for Uusimaa
Incumbent
Assumed office 22 March 1991

Born 4 November 1955 (age 54)

Jyväskylä, Finland
Political party Centre Party Alma mater University of Helsinki
Profession Political science
Social science
Journalist

Matti Taneli Vanhanen ( pronunciation ) (born November 4, 1955) is the current Prime Minister of Finland, as well as Chairman of the Keskusta (Centre Party of Finland). In the second half of 2006 he was President of the European Council. He is a journalist by profession. Matti Taneli Vanhanen ( pronunciation ) (born November 4, 1955) is the current Prime Minister of Finland, as well as Chairman of the Keskusta (Centre Party of Finland). In the second half of 2006 he was President of the European Council. He is a journalist by profession.

Career

Vanhanen was born in Jyväskylä, the son of professor Tatu Vanhanen, co-author of IQ and the Wealth of Nations, and Anni Tiihonen.
He read political science at the University of Helsinki, graduating as a Master of Social Sciences in 1989 [1]. He was chairman of the Centre Party Youth League from 1980 to 1983. He also served as a member of the Espoo city council from 1981 to 1984. Vanhanen is a journalist by profession; he worked on the local newspaper Kehäsanomat as an editor (1985–1988) and editor-in-chief (1988–1991). In his column in Suomenmaa, he strongly condemned the Baltic Star pro-Estonian independence demonstration held in Helsinki in July 1985, calling the demonstration “provocative”.[2].
Vanhanen was elected to the Finnish Parliament (Eduskunta) in 1991. As a member of Parliament he was interested in ecological issues. For instance, Vanhanen spoke against the building of a fifth nuclear power plant in 1992, at the same time as serving on the board of electricity corporation Fortum. He served on the Parliamentary Environment Committee 1991–1995, and was chair of the Parliamentary Grand Committee 2000-2001. He was vice-chair of the Centre Party Parliamentary group 1994–2001, and Deputy Chairman of the Centre Party 2000–2003.
Another important topic for Vanhanen was Finland’s foreign and security policy. As a specialist on the European Union he was a member of the European Union Constitutional Convention. There he criticized the president of the convention, former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, as authoritarian. Vanhanen has said [1] that he is unenthusiastic about European co-operation, and that he is an “EU pragmatist”, so he may be considered a eurosceptic, especially when compared to his EU-enthusiast predecessor Paavo Lipponen.