Lisbeth Pilegaard

Lisbeth Pilegaard is Executive Director of the Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy (DIPD), which works closely with Danish political parties to support the development of well-functioning democratic political parties, multi-party systems and other institutions. Lisbeth was previously the Executive Director of the Danish Fund Outside, working for the rights of socially marginalized groups.

Lisbeth has been seconded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a Humanitarian Affairs Expert Adviser to support the UN High Level Panel for Humanitarian Financing set up by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to address global humanitarian crises.

Lisbeth previously headed the Department for Middle East & North Africa at KVINFO – a leading Danish institution on Gender, Equality and Diversity – leading the development of strategic partnerships between Denmark and the MENA region, working with over 90 partners within the public, private and civil society sector and the academic world to help increase women’s economic, social and political participation in the region. Lisbeth also headed the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Global Technical Support Unit and established and managed NRC offices in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran as Regional Representative for three years.

Lisbeth has served in various NGO/UN/EU committees and working groups on development and humanitarian aid coordination, coherence and transparency. She was a civil society member of the Danish Delegation in the 2013 UN Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) and sat in the Council of the NGO Action Aid – Denmark. She has also been a board member of Transparency International – DK Chapter, and was appointed Adviser to UN Compact Cities Programme in Australia. Lisbeth is a Steering Member of the Nordic Women Mediators Network working for the inclusion of women into peace processes globally.

Lisbeth studied Rhetoric with a focus on international peace negotiations at the University of Copenhagen, and is a regular speaker at academic and political institutions.

Pavol Demeš

Pavol Demeš is an independent expert on foreign policy and civil society based in Bratislava. After the democratic changes in 1989, he served as the Executive Director of the Slovak Academic Information Agency – Service Centre for the Third Sector, a leading NGO in the country at the time. He was Minister of International Relations (1991-1992) and Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of the Slovak Republic (1993-1997). After 10 years as Director for Central and Eastern European of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (2000-2010), Pavol is currently the organisation’s non-resident senior fellow, as well as external advisor to the Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.

Prior to entering the field of public affairs after the Velvet Revolution, Pavol was a bio-medical researcher at Comenius University in Bratislava. He is a graduate of Charles University in Prague, and was a public policy research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. in 1999.

Pavol has written numerous publications on democracy and civil society, and was awarded both the EU-US Democracy and Civil Society and USAID’s Democracy and Governance Awards.

Sandra Breka

Sandra Breka is a senior executive who has been at the forefront of international affairs for 25 years. She has extensive expertise on global issues and their interdependencies with a focus on democracy, inequality, migration, peace and climate change. She has worked on the role and impact of international philanthropy, systemic change and helped build public-private partnerships globally.

Sandra is a Member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the European Endowment for Democracy. She furthermore serves on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group as well as the Board of the Berghof Foundation and is a Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

From 2017 to 2022, Sandra was CEO of the Robert Bosch Foundation, one of the largest European operational and grant-making foundations active in the funding areas Global Issues, Health and Education.

As CEO, Sandra spearheaded the most encompassing strategic and structural realignment in the foundation’s 60-year history. She established the Global Issues funding area focusing on Peace, Climate Change, Democracy, Inequality, Migration and Immigration Society, the foundation’s Strategic Partnerships as well as the Robert Bosch Academy. She, furthermore, oversaw the relaunch of the foundation's Strategic Communications.

As Senior Vice President from 2008 to 2017, Sandra established the Berlin Representative Office of the foundation, its advocacy activities and developed its funding area focusing on Peace. After joining the foundation as Senior Program Manager in 2001, she initiated the Southeast Europe portfolio, including the International Commission on the Balkans as well as the European Fund for the Balkans. She was, among others, responsible for programs focusing on Transatlantic Relations and Relations with Asia.

Before joining the Robert Bosch Foundation, Sandra worked as Director of Programs for Southeast Europe and Security Issues at the Aspen Institute Berlin and as Assistant Program Officer at the American Council on Germany in New York. She previously served on the Boards of the Mercator Institute for China Studies and the Munich Security Conference.

She holds an M.A. from Columbia University in New York and was a Yale World Fellow in 2008.

Bernard Guetta

Bernard Guetta is a Member of the European Parliament from France, elected in 2019 on the Renaissance list of the République en Marche. He is a member of the Renew Europe group.

Before becoming a parliamentarian, he was an acclaimed journalist, specialising on geopolitics, for close to fifty years.

Between 1979 and 1990 he was the correspondent of the Le Monde daily newspaper in Vienna, Warsaw, Washington and Moscow. From 1991 to 1993 he served as editor-in-chief of the Expansion magazine, he led the editorial team the weekly Nouvel Observateur between 1996 and 1999. From 1991 to 2018 he held a segment on geopolitics in the morning programme of the France Inter public radio. He regularly publishes articles and opinions in Le Temps, in the Libération, in the Italian papers La Repubblica, l'Espresso, and in the Polish newspaper Gazeta.

In 1981 he received the highest French journalism award, the Albert Londres Prize. For his book "Géopolitique", he was awarded the Mumm Prize in 1989.

In the European Parliament, he works in the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Human Rights Subcommittee and the Culture and Education Committee. He is member of the Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries and the Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean.

Maria Ligor

Before her current position as Ambassador-at-Large, Special Representative for International Cooperation, Promotion of Democracy and Human Rights, Maria Ligor served as the Minister for Diaspora in the Technocratic Government of Romania in 2016.

Between 2006 and 2011, she was the Ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain, as well as Permanent Representative to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). She briefly served as an ad interim Secretary General of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from 2003 to 2006, as Director General for European Affairs (EU and bilateral relations).

A diplomat since 1996, she has worked at the Mission of Romania to the EU (1998-2002), at the Embassy in Luxembourg (1997), and in Bucharest, at the Directorates for Political Planning, for the European Union, and for Western Europe. She also gained internship experience at the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.

Maria Ligor has a Master’s Degree from the College of Europe in Bruges, and a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Political Sciences from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Her training includes studies at the European Institute of the University of Geneva, and programmes such as ‘Managing and Shaping Change in the Information Society’, from Harvard University’s JFK School of Government, and the Kokkalis Project in Athens. In Romania, she specialised in International Relations at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies, after graduating from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest in 1990.

Jose Maria Muriel

José María Muriel has served in the Spanish Diplomatic Service since 1990. After posts at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the European Union and the Spanish Embassies in the United States and Canada, he is currently serving as the Technical Secretary General at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.

Muriel has also occupied the positions of the Ambassador-at-Large for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain as well as Consul General of Spain in Hannover, Germany. While working for EU institutions, he held posts of ‘Referendaire’ at the Court of Justice of the European Union and Head of the Justice, Security and Human Rights Team at the EU Delegation to the United States. He was also advisor at the Cabinet of the President of the Government of Spain on bilateral relations in Europe and European affairs.

In addition to his diplomatic career, Muriel teaches European affairs, human rights and other subjects at the Spanish Diplomatic School and other institutions in Madrid. Muriel also holds a Law Degree from University of Córdoba, and a Master in High European Legal Studies from the College of Europe. He has published numerous articles and books predominantly focusing on European affairs.

Jerzy Pomianowski

Jerzy Pomianowski has worked in international affairs for almost 30 years as Deputy Foreign Minister of Poland, Director of OECD-UNDP’s Partnership for Democratic Governance and Poland’s Ambassador to Japan.

In 2013, he led the establishment of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) and has since served as its Executive Director.

Jerzy began his career as a civil servant in 1990, just after the fall of communism, first in the Ministry of Education, and then in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He oversaw the launch of Poland Aid (2006-2008) and served as Director General of the Polish Foreign Service (2005-2006).

Before 1989, Pomianowski was an active member of the democratic opposition in Poland. He was Chief-Editor of the Independent Publishing House at the Warsaw University, his Alma Mater.

In his free time, he serves as president of the Polish Aikido Federation.