Iceland’s China ambassador takes on a busy international agenda

Iceland’s ambassador to China, Bergdís Ellertsdóttir, has had a full schedule since taking up the post in August, including accompanying Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir on a recent visit to China, mbl.is reported.

Ellertsdóttir spoke to Morgunblaðið in Shanghai last Thursday, before attending a concert by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Heiðar Ólafsson at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center. She had taken part in a varied programme in Shanghai, after accompanying the foreign minister the previous week in Beijing and Qingdao, a port city between Beijing and Shanghai.

The minister’s visit came just over a year after Icelandic President Halla Tómasdóttir made an official visit to China for the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration. During that visit, she met Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Ellertsdóttir said she had wanted to join Iceland’s foreign service since she was a girl, although she did not know anyone in the field. “I was just a girl from Breiðholt,” she said, adding that she was an avid reader and may have developed her interest through books about Beverly Gray, a character created by Clair Blank, or similar romantic stories.

She studied political science at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg, with English and history as supplementary subjects, then studied English and political science at the University of Iceland. She later earned a master’s degree in European studies from the University of Essex. After graduating, she worked as a tour guide, journalist and translator before applying for a job in the foreign service in late 1991, when she was about 30.

Ellertsdóttir is among the foreign service’s most experienced employees. She said that several influential women, including Sigríður Snævarr, Berglind Ásgeirsdóttir and Gréta Gunnarsdóttir, had joined before her.

Her first years at the ministry were spent in its trade office, where she worked on European Economic Area matters, including the bill on the EEA Agreement and information for the public and businesses. She said she spent much of her time answering questions, many from people outside the capital, particularly farmers worried about the future.

In 1995, she took her first diplomatic posting in Bonn, Germany, as first secretary at the embassy. Iceland’s ambassador at the time was Ingimundur Sigfússon. Although the decision had been made to move the capital to Berlin, the relocation had not yet taken place. Ellertsdóttir spent three years in Bonn before moving to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels, where she worked in the political division for two years.