Peter Hultqvist

Carl Anders Peter Hultqvist (born 31 December 1958) is a Swedish politician of the Social Democrats who served as the Minister for Defence in the Swedish Government from 2014 to 2022.

Background

Born in 1958, Hultqvist is of Finnish descent through his mother, who as a child was evacuated from Finland to Sweden during World War II. During his youth, he spent the summers in Kuusamo, his mother's village on the Finnish-Russian border, which had been burned by Soviet partisans during the Continuation War. Hultqvist's maternal grandfather, a farmer and a soldier in the Finnish Army, was killed in action during the war.

Hultqvist joined the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League in 1973, at age 15. Explaining his reasons for joining, he told Dagens Nyheter's Mikael Holmström that, "To me, communism was a totally dead option. It never existed in my mind. I have been completely vaccinated against all that. As for the right wing, I've never felt anything for it. This talk of free market forces and a belief in things sorting themselves out – I've never believed in that."

After graduating from high school in 1977, Hultqvist was conscripted to serve at the Dala Regiment in Falun. However, after only 57 days he was released, having reportedly registered as a conscientious objector. When asked about his release from military service by Svenska Dagbladet's defence correspondent Jonas Gummesson in 2016, Hultqvist refused to comment.

From 1977, Hultqvist embarked on a career as a journalist, in parallel with his political work. He was employed at two Social Democratic local dailies in Norrland, Dala-Demokraten and Norrländska Socialdemokraten, as well as at the Social Democratic party's political weekly Aktuellt i Politiken. He remains a columnist in Dala-Demokraten where he sat on the board from 1994 to 2014.