Advisory Board

To support the FES Regional Office for Cooperation and Peace in Europe, we initiated an Advisory Board consisting of eminent experts, diplomats and politicians who have a wide range of expertise in the field of security and peace policy in wider Europe.

The aim is to meet once a year in Vienna to discuss in a very frank manner the challenges we are facing for a peaceful and stable Europe. If possible the Secretary General of the OSCE should participate. Ideally, after the meeting we would have earmarked one or two topics the office could tackle. Results could be presented in cooperation with the country offices of the FES in the region and with the members of the Advisory Board in their respective countries. Through this common effort, the Regional Office in Vienna would have a firm international basis in its work towards a sustainable peace in Europe.

Members of the Advisory Board

Carmen Claudín · Spain

is Senior Research Fellow Associate at CIDOB, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, where she has been the Director of Research and previously Deputy Director. She has written various chapters for books and articles in magazines and newspapers on Soviet and post-Soviet issues. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Spanish edition of Foreign Policy, Madrid. She was awarded a Master’s in Philosophy from the University of the Sorbonne, Paris, where she also did postgraduate work in History, specializing in Russian and Soviet history.

Thomas Greminger · Switzerland

Ambassador Thomas Greminger is the Director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) since 1 May 2021. Previously, he served as Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from 2017 until 2020. He served as Deputy Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs from 2015 to 2017 and as the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the OSCE, the United Nations and the International Organizations in Vienna from 2010 to 2015. In 2014 he chaired the Permanent Council of the OSCE and was strongly involved in managing the crisis in and around Ukraine. 

Andrey Kortunov · Russia

is Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), a non-profit partnership established by order of the President of the Russian Federation. Previously he was Deputy Director of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies. He is the founder and first president of the Moscow Public Science Foundation. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and did postgraduate studies at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies, USSR Academy of Sciences. He has a PhD degree in History.

Stephanie Liechtenstein · Austria

has been working since 2013 as Web Editor-in-Chief of the Security and Human Rights Monitor, a quarterly print publication and online platform that brings to light current developments affecting peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area. Previously she worked for six years at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, including as senior political assistant in the Office of the OSCE Secretary General. She studied history of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Uwe Optenhögel · Germany

is CEO of the publishing house J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. in Bonn. He currently serves as Vice President of the Foundation of European Progressive Studies (FEPS). He has worked for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in various capacities, serving as head of the Department for Central and Eastern Europe and as International Director of the Foundation. His latest posting abroad for FES was in Brussels as director of the EU office in Brussels. Apart from his work for FES, Uwe Optenhögel has been a freelance political analyst and consultant for public and private organizations. He studied in Bonn, Lisbon, Hamburg and Washington, and holds a master’s degree in political science and a PhD from the University of Hamburg. 

Gwendolyn Sasse · Germany

is the Director of the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), Berlin. She is also Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Oxford, a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College, and a non-resident Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe. Her research interests include post-communist transitions (with a particular focus on Ukraine), the comparative study of democracy and authoritarianism, ethnic conflict and war, and migration (esp. the effects of social and political remittances). One of her current research projects at ZOiS concentrates on original survey data related to the war in Ukraine. Another ongong project focuses on attitudes of Russian youth. Her most recent monograph The Crimea Question: Identity, Transition, and Conflict (Harvard University Press 2007; paperback 2014) won the Alexander Nove Prize of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies.

Fred Tanner · Switzerland

was the Senior Adviser of the Director of the Conflict Prevention Center/ OSCE in Vienna until summer 2020. Previously he was Senior Adviser to the Crisis Management Centre of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bern, Switzerland. From 2013 to 2016 he was Senior Adviser to the OSCE Secretary General in Vienna and OSCE Project Leader of the “Panel of Eminent Persons for European Security as a Common Project”. He also served on the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. He previously served as Director of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). Fred Tanner holds a PhD and a Master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a Bachelor’s degree from the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies at the University of Geneva.

Ireneusz Bil · Poland

is Director of the Amicus Europae Foundation of Aleksander Kwaśniewski in Warsaw and secretary general of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR), an NGO based in Brussels. Between 1997 and 2006 he served in high-ranking advisory and executive positions in the National Security Bureau, Office for European Integration and Office of International Affairs in the Chancellery of the President of Poland. He is a graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics (WSE) and until 2006 was Assistant Professor (PhD) at his alma mater.

Sabine Fischer · Germany

is Head of the Eastern Europe and Eurasia Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. Previously, she worked at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt.
Areas of Expertise: foreign and security policy of Russia, EU-Russia relations, unsolved conflicts in the EU’s Eastern Neighborhood, and regional relations in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. She holds a PhD from Johann Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität Frankfurt.

Walter Kemp · Canada

is Senior Fellow at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. In 2018 and 2019 he established and led the Strategic Policy Support Unit in the OSCE Secretariat. Between 2010 and 2016 he was Director for Europe and Central Asia and then Vice President of the International Peace Institute (IPI). Previously he served for four years as spokesman and speechwriter at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). He has also been Senior Adviser to OSCE Chairmanships, the Secretary General and High Commissioner on National Minorities. He also supported the OSCE Panel of Eminent Persons, both in 2005 and in 2014/15. Walter, who is Canadian, holds a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics, as well as degrees in political science and history from the University of Toronto and McGill University.

Maria Maltschnig · Austria

is Director of the Karl-Renner-Institute, an Austrian think tank. She previously worked for the Austrian Chamber of Labor and the Federal Ministry of Finance, was an Assistant to the CEO of the Austrian Federal Railways and headed the cabinet of the Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern. She studied Socio-economics in Vienna. 

Matthew Rojansky · USA

is Director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. He has advised governments, intergovernmental organizations, and major private actors on conflict resolution and efforts to enhance shared security throughout the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region. Previously, he was Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Matt Rojansky is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Andris Sprūds · Latvia

is Director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs. He also holds the position of professor at Riga Stradins University. He has an M.A. in Central European History from the CEU in Budapest, Hungary and in International Relations from University of Latvia. He has also obtained a PhD in Political Science from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Andris Spruds has been a visiting student and scholar at Oxford, Uppsala, Columbia and Johns Hopkins University, as well as the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics.

Julie Wilhelmsen · Norway

is Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and former head of the Russia program at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. The two post-Soviet Chechen wars have been a constant focus in her research and she heads projects aiming to facilitate research on the North Caucasus. Wilhelmsen has been editor of the journal International Politik. She was a member of the Norwegian Government Expert Group for the Defence of Norway. 

Meetings of the Advisory Board