Heidi Hautala

Heidi Anneli Hautala (born 14 November 1955, Oulu) is a Finnish politician (Greens). 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. She served as Minister for International Development and ownership steering issues in Jyrki Katainen's cabinet.

Hautala resigned from her position in October 2013. Hautala stated that she could no longer work as a minister, because she had been inaccurate and remembered things incorrectly. Earlier she had given the press inaccurate information concerning her actions in politically managing state-owned company Arctia Shipping, when the company wanted to initiate police investigations against Greenpeace in 2012. She returned to the European Parliament in 2014.

Career

She 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 the president of the Green European Foundation.