25 Years of the Central European Initiative & 25 Years from the Fall of the Iron Curtain

On the occasion of the Austrian chairmanship of the Central European Initiative (CEI) this symposium will bring together academics and former political decision makers to analyse and discuss the fundamental changes in Central Europe since the fall of the Iron curtain 25 years ago with a particular focus on the role of the CEI in renewing regional cooperation in an area which covers today 18 countries and reaches from Trieste to Kijew. The organisers are thankful for the sponsorship provided by Erste Group Bank and for the support of the London embassies of Italy, Romania and Poland as well as of the Austrian Cultural Forum.

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Biographies

Florian Bieber is Professor of Southeast European Studies and director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. He studied at Trinity College (USA), the University of Vienna and Central European University, and received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Vienna. Between 2001 and 2006 he worked in Belgrade (Serbia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) for the European Centre for Minority Issues. He is a Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University and has taught at the University of Kent, Cornell University, the University of Bologna and the University of Sarajevo.

Emil Brix is Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to the United Kingdom. Since entering the Austrian Foreign Service in 1982, he has been Director-General for Foreign Cultural Policies and Director for Cultural Programs, and has served in diplomatic posts in Warsaw and Cracow. He has served as Secretary-General of the Austrian Research Association and as President of the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC). A member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in 2009 he was awarded the Gloria Artis medal for outstanding service to Polish culture.

Gianni De Michelis was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy from 1989 to 1992. He had previously served as Minister for State Holdings and Minister of Work and Social Security. He was leader of the Socialist Party group in the Italian Parliament in 1987-1988 and Deputy Prime Minister in 1988-1989. From 2004 to 2009 he was member of the European Parliament. He is currently President of the Ipalmo Institute for Relations Between Italy and the Countries of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

Eric Gordy is a political sociologist and Senior Lecturer in Politics of Southeast Europe at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He has taught at universities across Europe and North America. His publications include the books The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives (1999) and Guilt, Responsibility and Denial: The Past at Stake in Post-Milošević Serbia (2013). He holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Paul Lendvai is an Austrian writer and longtime journalist born in Hungary who fled his home country after 1956. From 1960 to 1982 he was the Vienna correspondent of the Financial Times and columnist for Austrian, German and Swiss newspapers and broadcasters. From 1982 to 1987 he was Head of the Eastern Europe Department of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). From April 1987 to October 1998 Prof. Lendvai was manager of Radio Austria International. He is now head of the "Europa Studios", the monthly international TV talk show and writes a weekly column for the daily newspaper "Der Standard" (Vienna). He is the author of 16 books on Eastern Europe. He is co-publisher and editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine Europäische Rundschau. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards. He was elected a Fellow of the Center for Applied Policy Research in Munich in 2003.

Zoran Milutinović is Professor of South Slav Literature and Modern Literary Theory at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He has previously taught at the University of Belgrade (1989-1998, 2000-2003), and was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Nottingham (1997), Wesleyan University (1999), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1999-2000), and has held research fellowships from the University of Ljubljana (1990-91), the Open Society Institute (1998-2000), and the Leverhulme Foundation (2008). He is editor-in-chief of Brill’s book series Balkan Studies Library and Director of the inter-university Centre for East European Language-Based Area Studies (CEELBAS) which UCL SSEES leads in a consortium with the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester and with seven other leading universities working together in the CEELBAS network.

Olaf Osica is Director of Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) of the University of Warsaw. He received his PhD from the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute in Florence in 2007. In 2005–2010 he worked as an expert at the Natolin European Centre, where he took part in the research programme “Euro-Atlantic security in the 21st century”. Previously, he was employed as an analyst at the Center for International Relations in Warsaw. He is a member of the editorial board of the quarterlies New Europe. Natolin Review and Sprawy Międzynarodowe [International Affairs] quarterlies. Since 2011 he has been a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for Western Affairs in Poznań. 

Slavo Radošević is Professor of Industry and Innovation Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (UCL SSEES). His research interests are in the area of science, technology, industry, innovation and growth in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and he is involved in international projects in this area. He has published extensively on this topic in international journals, and is author of International Technology Transfer and Catch-Up in Economic Development (1999) and co-editor of four books industrial structuring, knowledge-based economy and science policy in Europe.

Dimitrij Rupel is a Professor of Sociology and International Politics at the Faculty of State and International Studies of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), a writer, a politician and a diplomat. He has spent approximately 10 years as Foreign Minister in the governments chaired by prime ministers Peterle, Drnovšek, Rop and Janša. In 1992, he was elected to the Parliament; in 1994, he became the Mayor of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, and between 1997 and 2000, he served as the Ambassador of Slovenia to the United States of America. His latest book, The President or As It Was, was published in October 2009.

Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu was Foreign Minister of Romania from 2004 to 2007, director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service from 2007 to 2012, and Prime Minister in 2012. He was a professor of the University of Iași until 1998, and from 2000 to 2004 was a representative of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. He has been head of the Civic Force Party since 2012.