Bildt, Carl (1949– )

Swedish politician, prime minister 1991–94. Leader of the Moderate Party (MS) from 1986, he pledged an end to the ‘age of collectivism’ and in 1991 formed a right-of-centre coalition after decades of social democratic politics. A year later, after battling unsuccessfully with Sweden's worst economic crisis since the 1920s, he persuaded his former political opponents to join him in a fight for economic recovery, heading what was, in effect, a government of national unity. In 1995 he succeeded David Owen as European Union negotiator in the former Yugoslavia, and in 1996 was appointed ‘High Representative’ for Bosnia-Herzegovina, overseeing the reconstruction side of the Dayton peace agreement until June 1997.

Bildt was elected to the Riksdag (parliament) in 1979. He became leader of the Moderate Party in 1986 and when the ruling Social Democratic Labour Party lost its parliamentary majority after the 1991 general election, he formed with other right-of-centre parties what became known as the ‘bourgeois coalition’. He won widespread support for Swedish membership of the European Community (now the European Union) before he and his party were defeated in the 1994 elections.