Bodil Elisabeth Valero, a Green politician with a long and distinguished political career spanning local, regional, national, and international levels, has been nominated for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Influencer Magazine Awards 2026. The nomination recognises her decades of dedicated service to public life, beginning as a local and regional counsellor to become a member of the Swedish Parliament and then the European Parliament. She currently serves as Co-Convener of the Global Greens, having previously been part of the Swedish Greens delegation to the European Green Party as well as part of the Global Greens Coordination. Her political journey reflects a deep and sustained commitment to environmental sustainability, human rights, peace, and international cooperation.
As a lawyer specialised in migration and environment, Bodil’s main activities passed through energy and climate to become the spokesperson for the Swedish Greens in migration, security, foreign affairs, cooperation and control of weapons export. Her legal expertise has informed her work across multiple policy areas, enabling her to navigate complex legislative and regulatory frameworks with skill and precision. In the European Parliament, where she served from 2014 to 2019, her main subjects were security and defence, arms control, human and minority rights, migration and foreign affairs. She was a full member of the LIBE Committee, where she served as rapporteur for the Rights and Values Programme and was active in minority and human rights issues, and she also served as coordinator and full member of the SEDE Committee, where she was rapporteur on arms export. She was also a full member of the AFET Committee, serving as green spokesperson on Turkey, Afghanistan, and other critical regions, and a full member of the PETI Committee from 2014 to 2016.
Before her time in the European Parliament, Bodil served as a member of the Swedish Parliament from 2006 to 2014, where she was a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, serving as spokesperson on foreign affairs, cooperation, and security, and the Committee on Social Security and Migration, serving as spokesperson on migration. In her second term, she served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Defence, where she was spokesperson on arms export. She was also a member of the Government Commission on the control of arms export, a role that reflected her deep commitment to peace and disarmament. Her political career began at the local and regional levels, where she served as a member of the Regional Assembly of Gävleborg from 1998 to 2006 and as a member of the Municipal Assembly of Gävle from 1994 to 2010, holding various committee positions including the Municipal Executive Board and serving as Green Main Counselor full-time from 2002 to 2006.
Beyond her formal political roles, Bodil has been a dedicated advocate for international cooperation and development. She is the Global Chair for the G100 Security and Defence Wing since the start of the network, and in 2025 she held the presidency of the network as a whole. She is also co-founder of the African European Parliamentarians Initiative (AEPI), the successor of AWEPA, a peer-to-peer parliamentary cooperation NGO working with parliaments in Africa. Her work with AEPI reflects her commitment to building bridges between Europe and Africa and supporting democratic development on the African continent. She has also served as President of Forum Syd, an umbrella organisation for development NGOs in Sweden, from 2010 to 2013, and as a contact person for projects in South America for Green Forum from 2010 to 2013.
Bodil’s educational background is as diverse as her political career. She graduated first in Romance languages, studying Spanish, French, and Catalan, and later earned a Master of Laws degree from Uppsala University, specialising in environmental and migration legislation, and also studied Islamic law. She began her career studying music and drama, and she worked as a music and drama teacher before pursuing her legal and political careers. Her early experience as an ecological farmer in Catalonia, where she was one of the first to start an ecological farm in the Catalan mountains, reflects her lifelong commitment to environmental sustainability. In recognition of her extraordinary contributions, she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa from RAI University Ahmedabad in India in 2022.
What distinguishes Bodil Valero is her unwavering commitment to justice, peace, and sustainability across every level of government and civil society. She has consistently used her legal expertise and political influence to advocate for human rights, minority rights, migration justice, and arms control, while also working to strengthen democratic institutions and international cooperation. Her nomination for the Lifetime Achievement Award at IMA 2026 celebrates her extraordinary contributions to public life and her enduring legacy as a champion of the environment, human dignity, and global solidarity.
