Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, European Union Department. Current tasks: following and coordinating the participation of Poland in the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS), in the EU Northern Dimension and cross-border cooperation. Participation in various expert meetings in the Baltic Sea Region, CBSS Ministerial Sessions and Heads of Government Summits. Senior Official in the CBSS Committee of Senior Officials. Member of the Working Group on Democratic Institutions. Co-chairperson of the Working Group on Democratic Institutions of the Council of the Baltic Sea States during the Polish Presidency in the Group. Coordinator of the preparation to the CBSS Conference: Relations between corruption, Democracy and Human Rights, Warsaw, May 2007.
Experts - regional development
Katarzyna Barcikowska
Henryk Bątkiewicz
He holds a PhD degree in Political Sciences. His doctoral thesis was awarded the prize by the Polish Institute of International Affairs. Worked, among others, as a head teacher and as a teacher in a school and in an infant school at the Institute of Children's Diseases in Cracow. In 1990 worked in the Special Schooling Centre at the University Children's Hospital. Recently he has taught at the Brother Albert Memorial College for Social Workers. Since January 2004 Deputy Mayor of the City of Cracow, exercises general supervision over education, culture activities and preservation of the City’s historical monuments.
Tamar Beruchashvili
Deputy State Minister of Georgia on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. 1998-99 Deputy Minister of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations,
1999-2000 Minister of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations, 2000-04 Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2004 Deputy State Minister (Deputy Chief of the Government), 2004 Minister of State and Minister of Integration with European structures. She also has an great academic experience as the Assistant Professor of Economics Department of the Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, teaching International trade policy and commercial diplomacy and European Integration for the Master’s degree students and as a lecturer at the Georgian Institute of Public Administration (GIPA), Course for the Master’s degree students – Trade and Development. She is a member of the American Society of Public Administration, a member of the Georgian Information Society, board member of International Trade Policy and Law Center and a chairperson of the Government Commission for Gender Equality.
Josef Byrtus
Served as the Consul General of the Czech Republic in Katowice until 2007. He graduated from the Law Faculty of the Charles University and the University of Economics in Prague. He worked for the Ministry of Economy and Development (advisor on international cooperation, director of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, director of the board, advisor to the Prime Minister), Chief Director of the Office of the Ministry of International Relations. Subsequently, he begun his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic (Director of the Office).
Krzysztof Czyżewski
An essayist, a translator and cultural manager; Initiator and Director of the Borderland of Art, Culture and Nations Centre in Sejny, Poland. Author and coordinator of numerous European projects focusing on multiculturalism in Central-Eastern Europe, regional diversity and cultural heritage. Former Member of, inter alia, the President’s Council for Culture, Council for Culture at UNESCO-Poland, the Council of the Polish-Lithuanian Adam Mickiewicz Foundation and the Board of the Czesław Miłosz Foundation in Lithuania. Winner of numerous cultural and artistic awards, recently (2004) the Aleksander Langer International Award. Contributed significantly to the promotion of Poland in the world (Diploma of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000) and to the development of cooperation between Poland and Lithuania (Grand Prince Giedymin Order in 2001).
Olga Dorokhina
Graduated from Georgian Polytechnic Institute, has a diploma with honors of engineer-electro-energetic. After 10 years work in Georgian Railway Department she started activities with Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Georgian National Committee (hCa GNC). Since May 2000 program manager of hCa GNC. From 2002 - program manager of the South Caucasus Institute for Regional Security (SCIRS). Since 2003 she coordinates the work of Caucasus Center for Transborder Cooperation (under SCIRS). She is an author and co-author of more then 30 projects accomplished in Georgia as well as at the international level, number of articles and researches on the following issues - border management, transfrontier cooperation, migration, intercommunity dialog.
Kristóf Forrai
Executive Director of the International Visegrad Fund from 2006. In 1982 graduated from the University of Economics in Budapest. In 1989 he obtained his second Master of International Affairs at Colombia University, New York, USA. He joined the Foreign Service after the collapse of the totalitarian regime as First Secretary on the Embassy of Hungary in Washington, D.C. (1990-1993). 1993 – 1997 he worked as Head of Department for the Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad. In 1998 he became Head of the Department for Regional Cooperation in the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the same time Hungarian representative at the Danube Commission. Before being nominated V4 National Coordinator during the Hungarian Presidency (2005-2006) he worked for four years as Ambassador at the Hungarian Embassy in Prague.
Zoltán Gál
MA in Central European Studies at the Central European University, Budapest in 1994. PhD in Economic Geography at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1998. Research fields include Regional Economics, Regional Economics of Finance, Financial Geography, Regional Innovation Policy, Innovation Systems, Co-operation in the Central Europe in the field of innovation, Financial Sector Development in the Eastern and Central Europe and Economic History. Senior research fellow at the Centre for Regional Studies, HAS, the Transdanubian Research Institute, and Associate Professor at the University of Kaposvár, Faculty of Economics, Department of Regional Economics.2003-2004expert at the Regional Foresight Unit at the DG Research of the European Commission, Brussels. 2001-2004 senior manager of the Regional Innovation Strategy for the South Transdanuabian region.
Bożena Gierat-Bieroń
Graduated in Polish studies and history of drama at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1993. 1996-2001 Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for European Studies. 2002 – Ph.D. in humanities. An expert of IDRIE (Institute of Regional and European Community) in Kraków. Worked on the advisory board in the Cultural Department of the Kraków City Council. Main co-ordinator at the Centre for European Training. Lecturer at the postgraduate European studies and the School for Cultural Management. Also worked in an expert group preparing the strategy of regional development for the Małopolska Province. General Assembly of ENCANT (2000). Published in periodicals and daily press.
Danuta Glondys
She holds a PhD degree in the Humanities, MA in English Philology and in Political Studies. In the period 1993–1999, she was director of the Cultural Department of the Municipality of Krakow and following it, the Regional Director of the USAID programme in Poland. She is the European Commission expert in the European Capitals of Culture programme selecting and monitoring all ECOC since 2009. Director of the Villa Decius Association in 2001-2016, she is now the Plenipotentiary of the Board for International Affairs, responsible for its initiating and implementing programmes which advocate international cultural and intellectual cooperation and promotion of intercultural dialogue and human rights.Lecturer at the Jagiellonian University and the Humanistic Studies Department of the University of Technology in Krakow. Her research field covers relations between culture and politics and European integration. Author of numerous articles and publications. An avid traveler.
