Tarja Cronberg

Tarja Cronberg has served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2011 to 2014 and is now a Distinguished Associate Fellow for the European Security Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI.

Prior to her mandate as Member of the European Parliament, she was a Member of the Finnish Parliament from 2003 to 2007 and a former Minister of Labor. She chaired the Green League party from 2005 to 2009 and served on several parliamentary committees (foreign affairs, security and defense, employment). She was a member of the EU Competitiveness Council (2008-2009) and of the EU Employment and Social Affairs Council (2007-2009). She is fluent in seven languages.

Ms Cronberg has been at the center of policy making at the intersection of technology and the social sciences. She directed the North Karelia regional development council from 1993 to 2001 and led the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute from 2001 to 2003. She was a member of the Danish Parliament Technology Council (1986-1991); of the Norwegian Research Council dealing with IT and society (1984-1992). She was a member of the European Commission Information Society Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG) from 1999 to 2002; chaired the EU COSTA4 Group that examined the relationship between technology and society (1992-1997) and contributed to the VALUE think-tank that focused on the interaction between research and society (1993-1994).

The focal point in Tarja Cronberg´s work in recent times has been peace and security. After the Cold War she worked both in Russia and in the US studying the conversion of military industries into civilian uses. Together with Stanford University and the Perm Technical University she and her team studied the transformation processes mainly in the aerospace industry. As the Regional Director of North Karelia she was instrumental in establishing "soft borders" between Finnish border regions and the Karelian Republic on the Russian side. Her work led to the establishment of Euregio Karelia, a cross-border region with common development programs and projects. Later, as the Director of COPRI, Copenhagen Peace Research Institute she was involved in the further development of the Copenhagen School of Security Studies, doing also work on missile defense and dual-use technologies. In her political work she has specialized in defense and security matters, lately in questions of nuclear disarmament. Her choice of committees in the European Parliament reflected these interests, as did her work as the Chair of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Iran.