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Erkki Sakari Tuomioja is the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs and a member of the Finnish Parliament.
Tuomioja is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, although his political views are thought to be more to the left than the party line. He is also a member of ATTAC. In the past, Tuomioja has dated the former Finnish president Tarja Halonen.
He was the president of the Nordic Council in 2008.
Tuomioja comes from a family of politicians. His father Sakari Tuomioja was a prominent liberal Finnish politician and diplomat, and the challenger of Urho Kekkonen for the conservatives and liberals in the 1956 presidential elections. His maternal grandmother was Hella Wuolijoki, the Estonian born writer and socialist activist.
Tuomioja holds the degrees of Master of Social Sciences and Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration from the Helsinki School of Economics, as well as Licentiate in Social Sciences and Doctor in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki. In addition to Finnish, Tuomioja speaks Swedish, English, French, German and Estonian.
Tuomioja has been a member of the Finnish Parliament 1970–1979 and 1991–present. He held the position of Minister of Trade and Industry in Lipponen's 2nd government, and became the Minister for Foreign Affairs after Tarja Halonen was elected the President of Finland.
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