- Javier Solana
JAVIER SOLANA President of Madariaga European Foundation Dr. Javier Solana was born in Madrid on 14 July, 1942. He is married to Concepción Giménez and has two children. He has a Doctorate in Physics, and was a Fullbright scholar at several American universities. A Professor of Solid-state Physics at Madrid Complutense University, he is the author of over thirty publications in his field. He is a member of the Spanish Chapter of the Club of Rome.
- Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician and a former President of France. He served from 1995 until May 16 2007 and was re-elected in 2002. As President he was also an "ex officio" Co-Prince of Andorra and Grand Master of the French Légion d'honneur. After completing his studies at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and the École Nationale d'Administration, Jacques Chirac began his career as a high-level civil servant, and soon entered politics.
- Silvio Berlusconi
(born September 29, 1936) is an Italian politician, entrepreneur, and media proprietor. He is the leader of the Forza Italia political movement, a centre-right party he founded in 1993 in Rome. Berlusconi has twice held office as prime minister of Italy, most recently from 2001 to 2006. Berlusconi is the founder and main shareholder of Fininvest, among the ten largest Italian privately-owned companies, operating in media and finance including three national TV channels.
- Robert Schuman
Robert Schuman (June 29 1886 - September 4 1963) was a noted Luxembourg-born German-French politician, a Christian Democrat (M.R.P.) who is regarded as one of the founders of the European Union.
- Franco Frattini
Franco Frattini (born 14 March 1957) is an Italian politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security. He is also one of five vice-presidents of the 27-member Barroso Commission.
- Neelie Kroes
Neelie Kroes (born July 19, 1941 in Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland) is a Dutch politician and businessperson. Neelie Kroes was a Member of Parliament in the Netherlands for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). Later she was the Dutch State Secretary and Minister of Transport and Water Management. Neelie Kroes was member of the board of commissioners of several multinationals. She currently is the Dutch European Commissioner for Competition.
- John Major
Sir John Major, KG, CH (born 29 March 1943) is a former British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the British Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. During his time as Prime Minister, the world went through a period of transition after the end of the Cold War. This included the growing importance of the European Union and the debate surrounding Britain's ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.
- Margot Wallström
Margot Elisabeth Wallström (born 28 September 1954 in Skellefteå) is a Swedish Social Democratic politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy. She is also the first of five vice-presidents of the 27-member Barroso Commission.
- Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (West Germany between 1982 and 1990) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973-1998. His 16-year tenure was the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck. During his time in office the German Reunification took place and the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union, was signed.
- Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far-right nationalist politician, founder and president of the Front National (National Front) party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency 5 times, including in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than the main left candidate, Lionel Jospin. Le Pen lost in the second round to president Jacques Chirac. Le Pen again ran in the 2007 French presidential election and finished fourth.
- Valéry Giscard D'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Giscard d'Estaing is a French centre-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981. His tenure as President was marked by a rupture with his predecessor on social issues—such as divorce, contraception, and abortion—and attempts to modernize the country and the office of the presidency, …
- Meglena Kuneva
Meglena Shtilianova Kuneva (born 22 June 1957) is a Bulgarian and EU politician. Born in Sofia, Kuneva graduated in Law from Sofia University in 1981. In 1984 she became a Doctor of Law. She worked as a journalist for the Law Programme of the Bulgarian National Radio while being an Assistant Professor at Sofia University. In 1990 she took a job as Senior Legal Advisor at the Council of Ministers and held it until 2001.
- Jean-Pierre Jouyet
Jean-Pierre Jouyet is a French politician. After having graduated from the prestigious Institute for Political Science (Institut d'études politiques, IEP, otherwise known as Sciences Po), and later from Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA), he worked nearly two decades for the French government. He worked as an official for the French ministry of Economy and Finance (1980), was engaged in the simplification of the French tax system (1983), …
- Frits Bolkestein
Frits Bolkestein (The Netherlands) is Professor of Intellectual Foundations of Political Developments at the Universities of Leiden and Delft (NL). He is former Member of the European Commission for the Internal Market (1999-2004), former Dutch Minister of Defence, former Minister of Foreign Trade and former Director of Shell Chimie, Paris.
- Joe Borg
Joseph Borg (born 19 March 1952) is a Maltese politician and diplomat, associated with the Nationalist Party (the political party currently in government). He was instrumental in the process which led to Malta becoming a member of the European Union in 2004. He was the advisor to the foreign minister on European Union matters from 1989 until 1995, a member of the board of directors of the Maltese Central Bank from 1992 until 1995, and a member of parliament since 1995.
- Ahmed Yassin
Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin was the co-founder (with Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi) and the spiritual leader of the militant Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas, originally calling it "the Palestinian Wing of the Muslim Brotherhood". In addition to being nearly blind, he was a paraplegic and had to use a wheelchair after a playground accident in his youth. He was assassinated by an Israeli helicopter gunship.
- Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash is a renowned historian, columnist, essayist and author. He is currently director of the European Studies Centre and a Gerd Bucerius Senior Research Fellow in Contemporary History at St. Antony's College, Oxford. He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University , a fellow of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Arts and a governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
- Giuliano Amato
Giuliano Amato (born May 13, 1938) is an Italian politician. He was Prime Minister of Italy twice, first from 1992 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2001. He was more recently Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the new European Constitution and headed the Amato Group. He is commonly nicknamed "dottor Sottile", (which means both "Dr. Thin" and "Dr. Subtle", a joke about both his physical thinness and his political insightfulness).
- Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage (born 3 April 1964 in Farnborough, Kent) is a British politician, and leader of the eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip). He is also a member of the European Parliament for South East England.
- John Bruton
John Gerard Bruton (born 18 May 1947) was the ninth Taoiseach of the Ireland. A minister under two taoisigh, Liam Cosgrave, Garret FitzGerald Bruton held a number of the top posts in Irish government, including Minister for Finance (1981-1982 and 1986-1987), Minister for Industry & Energy (1982-1983) and Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce & Tourism (1983-1986). He became leader of Fine Gael in 1990 and served as Taoiseach from 1994 until 1997, …
- Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, MBE (June 16 1912 - February 8 1998) was a British politician, linguist, writer, academic, soldier and poet. He was a Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) between 1950 and February 1974, and an Ulster Unionist MP between October 1974 and 1987. Controversial throughout his career, his tenure in senior office was brief. He held strong and distinctive views on issues such as race, national identity, immigration, monetary policy, …
- Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski (born 31 August 1970 in Skopje) is the prime minister of Republic of Macedonia since August 27 2006. He is also the leader of VMRO-DPMNE since May 2003. He was Minister of Finance in the VMRO-DPMNE government led by Ljubčo Georgievski until September 2002. Among Gruevski's achievements as Minister of Finance was the privatisation of Fenimak. The government which sold the Macedonian Telecom to Hungarian Matav.
- Josep Borrell
Josep Borrell Fontelles (born April 24, 1947) is a European politician. He was President of the European Parliament from July 20, 2004 until January 16, 2007. Elected for the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), federated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), he sits with the Party of European Socialists group, and is the leader of the Spanish delegation. As of January 2007 he is chair of the Committee on Development, In the presidential vote, …
- Christopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker (born October 7 1937) is an English journalist and editor, educated at Shrewsbury School. He was a founding editor of "Private Eye" at the height of the British Satire Boom, but he was forced out in the magazine's early days by Richard Ingrams. He has, however, remained a regular contributor and joke writer on the magazine since its inception. In the late 1960s he wrote "The Neophiliacs", …
- Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit is a European politician and was a leader of the student protesters during the May 1968 riots in France. He was also known during that time as "Danny the Red" (because of both his politics and the color of his hair). He is currently co-president of the group European Greens–European Free Alliance in the European Parliament.
- Mikhail Fradkov
Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov (born September 1, 1950) is a Russian politician, and the current Prime Minister of Russia. Fradkov was born near the city now known as Samara in a Jewish family. He studied at both the Moscow Machine Tool Design (станкоинструментальный) Institute (graduated 1972) and the Foreign Trade Academy (graduated 1981). In 1973, he was posted to the economic section of the Soviet Union's embassy in India, …
- Will Hutton
Will Hutton is Executive Vice Chair in August 2008. He began his career as a stockbroker and investment analyst, before working in BBC TV and radio as a producer and reporter. Prior to joining The Work Foundation, Will spent four years as editor in chief of the Observer and he continues to write a weekly column for the paper.
- Rocco Buttiglione
Rocco Buttiglione is an Italian Christian Democrat politician and an academic philosopher. His being proposed as a European Commissioner resulted in controversy, as some political groups opposed him for his conservative views on homosexuality and women, despite his assurances that these were only his personal convictions and would not dictate his administration. He is a Professor of political science at Saint Pius V University in Rome, …
- Paul Thompson
Professor Paul Thompson is the head of the department of Human Resource Management at the University of Strathclyde Business School. He is one of the main theorists of Labour Process theory. He is also a co-editor of the journal "Renewal" about the politics of the British Labour Party. He was previously a member of Big Flame.
- Leonard Orban
Leonard Orban (born June 28, 1961) is a Romanian independent technocrat who currently serves as the Commissioner for Multilingualism in the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU). He is responsible for the EU language policy and is the first Romanian Commissioner and the first member of the Commission whose portfolio is exclusively multilingualism. His term of office began on January 1, 2007 and will end on October 31, 2009.
- Avigdor Lieberman
Avigdor Lieberman, also Liberman is an Israeli politician and leader of the Yisrael Beytenu party. He has served as the Minister of Strategic Affairs and as a Deputy Prime Minister of Israel since November 2006. In October 2006, Lieberman and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signed a coalition agreement. Under the agreement, Lieberman became the Deputy-Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs, …
- Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Atal Bihari Vajpayee (born December 25, 1924),(ਅਟਲ ਬਿਹਾਰੀ ਵਾਜਪੇਈ) was the Prime Minister of India, briefly in 1996, and again from March 19, 1998 until May 19, 2004. He retired from active politics in December 2005, but still comments on and participates in national debates of policy, welfare and defence. He is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian politics in general.
- Robert Pastor
Robert Pastor was the United States national security advisor on Latin America and the Caribbean under President Jimmy Carter. Pastor was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to serve as the Ambassador to Panama. However, President Clinton withdrew his nomination when he was brought under fire during his confirmation hearing for overseeing the return of the Panama Canal to the Panamians during his term under Carter.
- John Laughland
John Laughland is a British eurosceptic conservative journalist, academic and author who writes on international affairs and political philosophy. He has taken a number of controversial positions, such as when he criticised Western support for the Serbian opposition to Slobodan Milošević, and when he condemned the November 2003 revolution in Georgia as a "coup d'état". Laughland has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford, …
- Vojislav Koštunica
Dr. Vojislav Koštunica (pronounced, born March 24, 1944, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia) is the current Prime Minister of Serbia. He was also the last President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, succeeding Slobodan Milošević. A law graduate from the University of Belgrade with a Ph.D. at the Faculty of Law, he lost his job in 1974 after criticizing Tito's Communist government. In 1989, he became one of the founders of the Democratic Party.
- Altiero Spinelli
Altiero Spinelli (August 31, 1907-May 23, 1986) was an Italian citizen and advocate of European federalism; sometimes referred to as one of the "godfathers of European Union" due to his strong influence on the first few decades of post-World War II European integration. By the time of his death, he had been an Member of the European Parliament for ten years and had remained prominent on the European political scene through the Crocodile Club, which he co-founded.
- Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz
"'"' (born December 20, 1959 in Gorzów Wielkopolski) is a Polish politician who served as Prime Minister of Poland from October 31, 2005 to July 14, 2006. He is a member of the Law and Justice party ("Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS").
- Gijs de Vries
Gijs de Vries (born February 22, 1956 in New York) was a Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) politician and deputy Interior Minister between 1998 and 2002 who on March 25, 2004 became the European Union's anti-terrorism co-ordinator. As such he works for Javier Solana in the Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCCM) pillar. Solana outlined his duties as being to streamline, …
- Robert Cooper
Robert Francis Cooper was a British diplomat until 2002 when he assumed the role of Director-General for External and Politico-Military Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union. He is responsible to Javier Solana, High Representative of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, and has assisted with the implementation of European strategic, security and defence policy.
- Dana Priest
Dana Priest is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Priest has worked almost twenty years for "The Washington Post". As one of the "Washington Post's" specialists on National Security she has written many articles on the United States' "War on terror". In February 2006, Ms. Priest was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting for her November 2005 article on secret CIA detention facilities in foreign countries.