Olof Skoog is Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs/Political Director in the European External Action Service from March 2025. Olof Skoog is a Swedish diplomat with extensive experience from a number of positions worldwide, representing both Sweden and the European Union. With the European Union, he has served as the EU Special Representative for Human Rights and as the first Permanent Chair of the EU Political and Security Committee, coordinating the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy. He has represented the EU as Ambassador to Indonesia and Brunei, also accredited to ASEAN. He served as EU Ambassador to the UN in New York from 2019 to 2023. Before that he was the Permanent Representative of Sweden to the UN, representing Sweden on the UN Security Council in 2017-2018. He served as Chairman of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission in 2015 and led peace-building efforts in Liberia for five years as the country transited from conflict towards democracy. He led the UN Sanction Committee on Libya and Mali as well as the Security Council work on Children and Armed Conflict. He has also been Swedish Ambassador to Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. He has served the United Nations as Executive Assistant to Dr. Hans Blix in the verification of WMDs in Iraq. Ambassador Skoog holds a Master of law, specialized in international law and human rights.
