Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide (born 2 May 1976) is a Norwegian politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2021, the first woman to hold the position. Previously, she was the Minister of Defence from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Conservative Party, she was elected in 2005 as a member of the Storting for Oslo. Søreide was appointed Norway's Foreign Minister on 20 October 2017. She succeeded Børge Brende. Career Party politics Born in Lørenskog in 1976, Søreide studied law at the University of Tromsø, while at university she joined the Conservative Party and got involved in local politics. In 2000, she became a member of the Conservative Party Central Executive Committee and Chairman of the Norwegian Young Conservatives. Eriksen Søreide started work as a producer at Metropol TV. After Jan Tore Sanner announced he was stepping down as deputy leader, Søreide was mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed him, alongside Henrik Asheim and Nikolai Astrup. However, she announced on 14 February 2022 that she wouldn't be seeking the deputy leadership. Parliament She was also elected a Deputy Member of the Storting for Oslo in 1997, and was re-elected in 2001. Following Metropol's closure Eriksen Søreide joined Grette Law Firm as a trainee. She was elected to Parliament in the 2001 election, and was re-elected in 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021. Following the Solberg Cabinet's defeat in the 2021 election, Søreide became the chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, a position she previously held from 2009 to 2013. Minister of Defence After the election victory following the 2013 election, Søreide was appointed minister of defence in the Solberg cabinet. In an interview in connection with the Crimean crisis in 2014, Søreide called for higher armaments efforts from all European NATO states. In the summer of 2013, while Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen was still Minister of Defence, the Storting decided to introduce gender-neutral conscription in the Norwegian Armed Forces, and it was introduced in 2015 under Søreide's leadership. In February 2017, ahead of the NATO summit in May, Søreide expressed that it wasn't realistic to reduce two percent of BNP on defence spending in the 20 year period given. This goal was never reached during her tenure, though the defence spending did increase year by year. Minister of Foreign Affairs Following the 2017 election, Søreide was appointed minister of foreign affairs, succeeding