page_title: Karin Söder
section_title: Other positions
hierarchical_section_title: Karin Söder / Political career / Other positions
caption_attribution_description: English: Former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Karin Söder.
context_page_description: Karin Ann-Marie Söder was a Swedish Centre politician. She was the first woman in Sweden to be elected the leader of a major political party. She headed the Swedish Centre Party from 1985 to 1987. She was also one of the first female foreign ministers in the world.
context_section_description: During her years in politics, she also held posts as chairperson of Save the Children Sweden 1983–1995 and as President of the Nordic Council 1984–1985 and 1989–1990. She has also served as a member of several company boards, including Skandia and Wermlandsbanken, as well as on the Board of the Royal Institute of Technology. She once again made political headlines in 2003, when she co-signed an article urging her fellow party members to vote Yes in the Swedish Euro referendum, opposing the official party line.
  Despite her varied accomplishments, the political legacy Söder is most known for among Swedes may be the 1980 reform that shut the stores of Systembolaget, the national alcoholic beverage retailing monopoly, on Saturdays. The policy remained in place for many years, but was abolished in 2001.
caption: Karin Söder, 2012
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