Founder and head of demosEuropa – the Centre for European Strategy. He graduated in 1994 from the London School of Economics (International Relations). In 1996 he became an adviser on European policy to the President of Poland and later headed the European Integration Office in the President’s Chancellery. Between 2001 and 2006 he served as the Director of the European Union Department in the Foreign Ministry. Swieboda is a member of several expert commissions including the Lisbon Council and the Commission on Europe after 50 set up by Chatham House. He writes a regular column on foreign policy in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Experts
Paweł Świeboda
Jiří Sýkora
V4 Public Relations Coordinator,International Visegrad Fund.
Péter Szeratics
Minister Counsellor, Embassy of the Republic of Hungary in Poland.
Borys Tarasyuk
Ukrainian diplomat and politician, twice Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in five governments under two Presidents (1998-2000, 2005-2007), Vice-President of the EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly. Founder and Director (since 2001) of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and Chairman of the Board of the magazine "Euroatlantic". Leader of the political party “People's Movement of Ukraine” (2003-2012), Deputy Head of All-Ukraine Union “Bat'kivschyna” party (since 2013). Member of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine (since 2002 till now), Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs (since 2014). Chair of Inter-factional Group “Ukraine in NATO”. Head of the Parliamentary Committee for European Integration (2002-2005, 2006 and 2007-2012). Since 1975 he served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Mission at the UN (1981-1986), member of Delegation to UN Security Council (1984-1985), Ambassador of Ukraine to the Benelux countries (1995-1998), Head of the Mission of Ukraine to NATO (1997-1998). Has the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (since 1992).
Jan Tomášek
Deputy Head of Mission of the Czech Republic to Poland since August 2006. At the MFA since 1991. Two previous postings - Slovakia (1993-98) and Russia (1999-2004). Speaks English, French, Russian and Polish.
Magdaléna Vašáryová
A member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic. Chairwoman of the oldest Slovak women’s association „Živena“ and chairwoman of the Institute for cultural policies. In the past she served as a State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic. Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Poland (2000 – 2005), between 1990 – 1993 Czechoslovak Ambassador to Austria. Founder and in years 1993 – 2000 the director of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association - SFPA (today honorary chair). Lectured at the Institute of International Relationships and Law Harmonization at the Faculty of Law of the Comenius University in Bratislava, and currently she is lecturer at the CEVRO Institute (Prague). In 2010 she was awarded with a Gold Medal for Meritorious for Culture – Gloria Artis. An author of several books and articles in domestic and international press.
Michal Vašečka
Doc. PhDr. Michal Vašečka, PhD (1972) is sociologist by background and focuses his interests on issues of ethnicity, race, antisemitism, and migration studies. As an Associate Professor he operates at the Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts (BISLA) since 2015 and he is a director of Bratislava Policy Institute. He operated at the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University in Brno in 2002-2017 and at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of the Comenius University in 2006-2009. As a visiting scholar he operated at the New School University in New York (1996-1997) and at the University of London (1998), in 2008-2009 he lectured at the Georgetown University in Washington, DC, in 2015 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, in 2016 he was a scholar-in-residence in the ISGAP at Oxford University. Michal Vašečka is a founder of the Center for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture, he served a director of the CVEK (2006-2012). In 1998-2005 he operated at the Slovak think-tank Institute of Public Affairs as a program director on expert analysis of the Slovak transformation process with a focus on national minorities and the state of civil society in Slovakia. He has been a consultant for the World Bank in 2000-2008 and in 2011-2012. Since 2012 Michal Vašečka serves as a representative of the Slovak Republic in the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), human rights body of the Council of Europe. He is also as a vice-chairman of the governmental committee VRAX tackling extremism and racism in Slovakia. Michal Vašečka serves as a non-resident research associate at the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg. In 2018 Michal became a laureate of the Award for special contribution in the field human rights of Minister of Justice of Slovakia.
Bjorn Warkalla
Graduated in Political Science from Freie Universität in Berlin. Research fellow at the political sciences department of Freie Universität Berlin.
Nina Witoszek-Fitzpatrick
Polish professor at Oslo University and Oxford University. After graduating with a degree in linguistics from Wrocław University, in 1988 Witoszek received a doctorate in comparative cultural history from the University of Stockholm. At the beginning of 2005 she was included among the top 10 most outstanding Norwegian intellectuals in a ranking published by Dagbladet magazine. Witoszek is also a novelist and screenwriter. The collection of short stories entitled Fables of the Irish Intelligentsia and published under her pseudonym garnered a prestigious literary award in Ireland and the story The Loves of Faustyna (translated into polish) have created a sensation on the British literary market. In 2005 she was awarded the prestigious Freedom of Expression Prize for "bringing novel, Eastern European perspectives into the Scandinavian public debate". She donated part of the award to establishing the Solidarity Europe Association. Her recent books include Culture and Crisis (Oxford, New York, 2003) and Daimons (New York, 2003).
