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Kriistina Ojuland - The Economic Crisis from the Perspective of Estonia and the Baltic Sea Region »
Kriistina Ojuland
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia
Kriistina Ojuland was born on the 17th of December 1966 in Kothla Järve, Estonia. She attended Tartu University during the 1980s and received her Law Degree in 1990. After graduating she went on to complete a post-graduate course at the Estonian School of Diplomacy in Tallinn in 1992. She started working in the public sector, fist at the Ministry of Justice, and then at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she was responsible for the Council of Europe department.
In 1993 she embarked on a diplomatic career and was appointed permanent representative to the Council of Europe. In 1994 she was recalled to Estonia and was given the prestigious task of directing the Estonian Broadcasting Association. A member of the Estonian Reform Party, she was appointed Foreign Policy spokesman for the Party in 1995, ad a year later was elected for the first time to the Tallinn city Council. Afterwards she rose to the rank of vice-chairman of the party, and was repeatedly re-elected to the Riigikogu (the Estonian Parliament).
In 2002 she was given the influential task of chairing the Commitee on European Affairs from 2005 until 2007, when she was elected Vice-President of the Parliament. Outside of party politics, she was Director of the European Institute and lecturer at the Concordia International University in Estonia and Chairperson of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute.