Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Oslo

Expertise:
•    International Security Policy
•    UN, NATO, OSCE and European Security Issues

Espen Barth Eide is Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position he has held since June 2010. He was also Deputy Minister in the MFA in the first Stoltenberg Government of 2000-2001, and he was the Deputy Minister of Defence (State Secretary) from October 2005 to June 2010. Among a number of major programmes, Mr. Eide was in charge of the political process that led to the recent choice of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as Norway’s new combat aircraft. He has furthermore been actively engaged in raising the issue of the Arctic/High North on the Norwegian, Nordic and NATO agendas, and he is engaged in the inter-ministerial development of Norway’s policies on Afghanistan and other on-going operations. Mr. Eide was a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) from 1993-1999 and a Director of the Department of International Politics at NUPI from 2002-2005. As a researcher, he focused on issues ranging from international peacekeeping and UN reform to European, arctic and transatlantic security. He was engaged in a number of international research programs, often in the intersection between academia and policy development.