Erik Solheim

Erik Solheim (born 18 January 1955) is a Norwegian diplomat and former politician.

Born in Oslo, Solheim attended high school at Oslo Cathedral School and, after serving conscription for the Norwegian Air Force in Bodø (1974–75), graduated from the University of Oslo in 1980 with a cand.mag. degree after studying history, sociology and political science.

After 11 years in parliament he worked for five years for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs before being appointed Minister.

Solheim was formerly a politician for the Socialist Left Party (SV); he led its youth branch, the Socialist Youth, from 1977 to 1981, was party secretary from 1981 to 1985, and served as a member of the Parliament of Norway from 1989 to 2001.

Solheim was the leader of Socialist Youth 1977–1980 and party secretary of the Socialist Left Party 1981–1985.

He was leader of the Socialist Left Party from 1987 to 1997.

During Solheim's tenure as party leader the party moved closer to the centre and abandoned many former hard-left stances.

Within the party, Solheim was considered part of the right wing, and his reforms made him strongly unpopular on the left wing of his own party.

In 1987, he became leader of the Socialist Left Party and rose quickly to become a popular figure in Norwegian politics.

In the 1989 election he was elected to Parliament from Sør-Trøndelag in what was to then SVs best election, but was the following two elections (in 1993 and 1997 Solheim was elected from Oslo).

He was controversial within his own party because he was considered to be too right-wing.

Through the 1990s Solheim became one of the most prominent figures in Norwegian politics, and lead his party through a period of rising popularity.

In later years he has received criticism from some older party colleagues for moderating his views on the European Union and becoming a supporter of Norway's membership in NATO.

In 1997, after ten years as party leader, he stepped down and was succeeded by Kristin Halvorsen.

In 2000 Solheim left Norwegian politics to take up an appointment as a special adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs working as a participant in the Norwegian delegation that unsuccessfully attempted to resolve the Sri Lankan Civil War before the outbreak of Eelam War IV.

From the spring of 2000 he was granted a leave of absence from parliament to serve as special advisor to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sri Lanka.

He went on to become one of the most recognizable figures in the peace negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers.

Solheim helped negotiate a truce in 2002.

He served in the Norwegian government from 2005 to 2012 as Minister of International Development and Minister of the Environment, and as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme from 2016 to 2018.

Solheim is a member of the Green Party.

Erik Solheim has 4 children from two marriages.

Solheim returned to Norwegian politics in 2005 when he was appointed Minister of International Development.

Solheim was appointed Minister of International Development on 17 October 2005 as part of Stoltenberg's Second Cabinet, the first time Solheim's party sat in the Cabinet.

On 17 October 2005, he continued his engagement with international affairs when he was appointed Minister of International Development in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

In this position, he was able to continue his work on the Sri Lanka issue.

Solheim met with the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister and U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns on 23 January 2006.

After meeting with the officials, Solheim told journalists in Colombo, "Everyone is worried with the present deteriorating security situation. It is hard to see the present situation continuing indefinitely. Sri Lanka is at a crossroads."

After meeting with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, Undersecretary Burns expressed hope that "the LTTE understands that it will have no relations with my country, and for that matter any effective relations with any country in the world, on the barrel of the gun."

President Rajapakse and Solheim met the day after.

Solheim then went north and met with Tamil Tiger rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and rebel negotiator Anton Balasingham.

Dumeetha Luthra of BBC News said Solheim's visit was seen as crucial to saving the truce.

In 2007 he additionally became the Minister of the Environment, and he held both offices until 2012.

On 18 October 2007, he was also appointed Minister of the Environment.

After leaving the government in 2012, he returned to his previous position as a special adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from 2013 to 2016 Solheim was chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee in Paris.

He held both posts until 23 March 2012, when he was—against his own wish—moved by newly appointed party leader Audun Lysbakken.

Solheim later expressed his support for the centrist Green Party and was active as a strategic adviser for the party during the 2015 elections.

He was Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme from 2016 to 2018.

In November 2018 he stepped down following an internal UN audit that criticized his frequent international travel and some internal rule breaking.

Since he left the government, Solheim sometimes made critical remarks about the Socialist Left Party.

He became a member of the Green Party in 2019.