Erkki Liikanen

Erkki Antero Liikanen (born 19 September 1950) is a Finnish social democratic politician and the Governor of the Bank of Finland.

Erkki Antero Liikanen obtained a Bachelor's degree in Political Science (Economics) from the University of Helsinki in 1975. He was elected to the Finnish Parliament in 1972 when he was only 21 years old. He left Parliament in 1990 to become the first Finnish ambassador to the European Union. In 1994 he became the first Finnish Member of the European Commission. He was Commissioner for Budget, Personnel and administration, which included responsibilities for translation and information technology.

Liikanen has been Governor of the Bank of Finland since 12 July 2004. As such he also became a Member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (2004–present) and Governor of the International Monetary Fund for Finland (2004–present ).

In February 2012, EU Commissioner Michel Barnier asked Erkki Liikanen to chair a group of experts to assess the need for structural reforms to the EU banking sector. Their works is known as the Liikanen report was published on 2 October 2012.

Liikanen has been the chairman of Finnish Red Cross since June 2008. He is married to Hanna-Liisa Liikanen and they have two daughters.[1]

• Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Finland, 12 July 2004– (Present position)
• 1995–1999 Member of the European Commission for Budget; Personnel and administration, Brussels
• 1990–1994 Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Head of Finnish Mission to the European Union, Brussels
• 1987–1990 Minister of Finance for Finland
• 1983–1987 Parliamentary Trustee to the Bank of Finland (Vice-Chairman), Speaker's Council
• 1981–1987 Secretary-General of the Social Democratic Party
• 1980–1989 Member and subsequently Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Outokumpu Corporation (steel)
• 1978, 1982, 1988 Elected as Member of the Electoral College to select the Finnish President
• 1972–1990 Member of Parliament; member of Cultural Affairs Committee (1972–1975), Agriculture and Forestry Committee (Vice-Chairman) (1977–1979), Foreign Affairs Committee (member 1975–1982; Chairman 1983–1987)

• Brysselin päiväkirjat 1990–1994 (edited by Eila Nevalainen) ISBN 951-1-13832-4

• Liikanen, Erkki (1995). Eila Nevalainen, ed. Brysselin päiväkirjat 1990–1994 (in Finnish). Otava. ISBN 9789511138327.