Walter Schwimmer (born 16 June 1942, Vienna) is a former politician and diplomat from Austria. Was Secretary General of the Council of Europe from September 1, 1999, to August 31, 2004.
After being a member of the Austrian Parliament (National Council) for 28 years, serving as chairperson of several committees (Justice, Health, Housing and Construction) and deputy leader of his political group (ÖVP – Austrian People's Party), he was elected Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
Schwimmer held this post from September 1, 1999, until September 1, 2004. At the beginning of his term, The Economist accused him of being a "timid moral policeman" over his treatment of the Chechen–Russian conflict. [1] In June 2004 his attempt to be elected to a second five-year term as secretary general failed, like all his predecessors of whom no one was reelected.
Schwimmer currently works as a consultant on international relations and European affairs, based in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. [2]
Schwimmer is (honorary) Secretary General of the Maison de la Méditerranée/Fondazione Mediterraneo (Naples) and Chairman of the International Coordination Committee of the World Public Forum - Dialogue of Civilisations, a Russian vehicle.
On April 15, 2010, he became president of Megatrend University, the largest private university in Serbia. [3] He resigned from this position in January 2013.
In a 2015 with Russia Direct he emphasized that the Euromaidan "was originally a civil society movement against corruption and had nothing to do with pro-European or anti-Russian choice. However, it was seen by Russia as a coup d'état and by the EU as a kind of strategic decision of Ukraine to go not with Russia but with Europe, which Schwimmer dismissed as a "misinterpretation" and "nonsense." [4] In the same interview he blames poor European communication for the Russian military getting "concerned about the possibility of losing the naval base in Sevastopol." Not giving Russia a guarantee to keep the naval base in Sevastopol was a mistake, according to Schwimmer: "now Russia and the EU are trapped. Russia will not retreat from Crimea and the EU cannot acknowledge its annexation, since it was against international law. And now Russia and the EU are trapped in this escalation of sanctions that are leading to nothing." [4]
Erhard Busek was an Austrian politician from the Christian-conservative People's Party (ÖVP). Throughout his political career, he was widely regarded as one of the leaders of the party's liberal wing. He was coordinator of the South-Eastern Cooperative Initiative (SECI) and chairman of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe.
Othmar Karas is an Austrian politician who has been serving as the First Vice-President of the European Parliament since January 2022, having been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 1999. He is a member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), which in turn affiliates with the European People's Party.
Wolf Klinz is a German politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) with the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), from 2004 until 2014 and from 2017 until 2019.
Hans Köchler is a retired professor of philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and president of the International Progress Organization, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations. In his general philosophical outlook he is influenced by Husserl and Heidegger, his legal thinking has been shaped by the approach of Kelsen. Köchler has made contributions to phenomenology and philosophical anthropology and has developed a hermeneutics of trans-cultural understanding that has influenced the discourse on the relations between Islam and the West.
‘’’Ioan Holender’’’ is a Romanian-born Austrian opera baritone and administrator.
Ulrike Lunacek is an Austrian politician who served as State Secretary for Cultural Affairs in the government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in 2020. She is a member of the Austrian Green party The Greens – The Green Alternative, part of the European Green Party.
Michael Spindelegger is an Austrian politician. He served in the cabinet of Chancellor Werner Faymann as foreign minister of Austria from 2008 to 2013 and as finance minister from 2013 to 2014; additionally, he held the office of vice-chancellor from 2011 to 2014. Spindelegger was also the leader of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) from 2011 to 2014. In August 2014 he unexpectedly resigned from all political positions. Since 2016, he has been serving as Director General of the Vienna-based International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).
The Union for the Mediterranean is an intergovernmental organization of 43 member states from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: the 27 EU member states and 16 Mediterranean partner countries from North Africa, Western Asia and Southern Europe. It was founded on 13 July 2008 at the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean, with an aim of reinforcing the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Euromed) that was set up in 1995 as the Barcelona Process. Its general secretariat is located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor is a Russian businessman.
Nils Daniel Tarschys, is a professor of political science at Stockholm University.
The Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria. It is divided into 15 classes and is the highest award in the Austrian national honours system.
Ernst Strasser is a former Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) politician and former Federal Minister of the Interior in Austria (2000–2004), Member of the European Parliament (2009–2011) and bearer of the "Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash". Since 2014, he works as an Entrepreneur in the Mergers and acquisitions sector and is also a hotel owner.
The Hamburg Summit: China meets Europe is a biennial high-level conference on Sino-European economic relations held in Hamburg. The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce initiated the first "Hamburg Summit" in 2004 to set up a platform for an open dialogue between Europe and China and to improve their economic relations.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) is an international organization established in 2005 by the national parliaments of the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean region. It is the legal successor of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (CSCM), launched in the early 1990s.
The Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, also known as the Martens Centre and previously as the Centre for European Studies, is a think tank and political foundation of the European People's Party (EPP). The Martens Centre links together a large network of political foundations across the European Union, which all hold centre-right positions and seek to advance those points of view in Europe and beyond. The president of the Martens Centre is former Slovak prime minister Mikuláš Dzurinda.
Jagdish Chandra Kapur (1920-2010) was an Indian social scientist, entrepreneur and the founder of Kapur Surya Foundation and Kapur Solar Farms. He was also the Editor of World Affairs Journal, a publication aiming at and providing a platform for better interaction between the developed and the developing nations. The Government of India honoured him in 2010, with the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award, for his services to the fields of science and technology.
Heinrich Pfusterschmid-Hardtenstein is a former Austrian diplomat, who has also been active in the academic world and cultural policy.
Andreas Schieder is an Austrian politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019.
The Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute is an independent think tank. Its headquarters is located in Berlin, with representative offices located in Moscow and Vienna. The Institute carries out research into issues concerning international relations and international security. The subjects at the forefront of the Institute's activities are East and West, and issues related to the war against terrorism, infrastructure development, the search for alternative models for economic development, and the preservation of human values. Employed in the Institute's research activities is the so-called "Index of Dialogue" which enables the propensity towards conflict in any given area to be assessed, including the risk of it escalating to the "hotspot" stage.
Hilde Hawlicek is an Austrian retired politician and former Minister for Education, Arts and Sport.