23 June 2010: New Chairman of the Board of SIPRI appointed
(Stockholm) The Swedish Government appointed today Göran Lennmarker as the new Chairman of the Governing Board of SIPRI. He will formally take up this position in September 2010. He succeeds Ambassador Rolf Ekéus who will be stepping down, having served his mandated 10-year term.
Lennmarker is currently Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Swedish Parliament, a position he has held since 2006. Lennmarker was elected to the Swedish Parliament in 1991 and has also served as the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 2006 to 2008.
SIPRI Director and Governing Board member Dr Bates Gill said, "We welcome the appointment of Göran Lennmarker. He is an accomplished politician and foreign affairs practitioner, a long-time friend of SIPRI, and will bring outstanding international contacts and expertise to this position. All of us at SIPRI look forward to continuing our work with him in this new capacity as leader of our distinguished Governing Board." Gill added, "We also wish to express our deep appreciation to Ambassador Rolf Ekéus for his extraordinary service to SIPRI over the past 10 years and look forward to sustaining our cooperation with him in the months and years ahead."
According to the SIPRI statutes, the Chairman of the SIPRI Governing Board is appointed by the Swedish Government, based upon nominations provided by the SIPRI Governing Board, the SIPRI Research Staff Collegium and the SIPRI unions. The Chairman serves for no more than two consecutive five-year terms.
In addition to Ambassador Ekéus, Lennmarker's predecessors include Daniel Tarchys, Inga Thorsson, Ernst Michanek, Rolf Björnerstedt, Karin Söder, Hans Blix, Rolf Edberg, Gunnar Myrdal, and Alva Myrdal.
Current SIPRI Governing Board members are Alexei Arbatov (Russia), Nabil Elaraby (Egypt), Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka), Mary Kaldor (United Kingdom), Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria), Wolfgang Ischinger (Germany), and Dewi Fortuna Anwar (Indonesia).
