Short Biographical Information on Speakers
Luciana Ciobotaru
Luciana Ciobotaru currently works for the Chamber of Deputies, Parliament of Romania as an expert advisor. She is also a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration. By training a journalist, she received her degree from the “Lucian Blaga” University in Sibiu in 1988. She has served as an editor and correspondent for various newspapers and radio stations in Romania, including the National Press Agency ROMPRES.
ari Erhan
Currently Associate Professor of Diplomatic History at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Ankara. Dr. Erhan is currently a board member of the Committee for European Historiography at the Turkish Ministry of education, as well as editor of the Ankara Review of European Studies, and editorial board member of Perceptions.
Mr. Erhan received his Ph.D. in history from Haceteppe University in 2000, and has been a visiting fellow at the Georgetown University Institute of Turkish Studies and at the University of Tel Aviv at the department of Geography. His research interests relate to European integration, EU-Turkish relations, and Turkish diplomacy. His recent publications include a book on Turkish-Israeli relatoins (2003) and a co-edited book on Turkish-American relations.
Juris Gromovs
Currently representing the Republic of Latvia in the Budapest Group (group of more than 30 countries dealing with illegal migration and related issues), Juris Gromovs is the vice-chairman of the Expert committee of the European Committee on Migration of the Council of Europe and its Committee of Experts on the Implementation of the Migration Management Strategy. In Latvia, he is a visiting lecturer at the University of Latvia.
J.Gromovs received his degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Latvia (Master in International Law). He has numerous publications related to the problems implementing the EU acquis communautaire in Latvia.
He served as a member of various inter-ministerial working groups for harmonisation of Latvian legislation on asylum and migration issues. Since February 1999 he has been working for the European Integration Bureau, a state agency under the direct authority of the Prime Minister established to manage and co-ordinate Latvia’s integration into the European Union. His current position is Deputy Head of the Department of Sectoral Policies.
Dr. Helmut Hubel
Currently Director of the Institute of Political Science and Dr. Hubel holds the Chair of Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. Thuringia/Germany. Previously he was Professor and Visiting Professor at the Universities of Koblenz-Landau/Germany; the University of California at Irvine/USA; the Technical University of Dresden; and Tampere University/Finland.
Prof. Hubel received his habilitation (German qualification for a professorship) at the University of Bonn in 1993 and completed his dissertation at the University of Marburg/Lahn in 1979. He has been a Research and Senior Research Fellow of the German Society of Foreign Affairs, Bonn and a Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, Washington, D.C., and the Institute of East-West Security Studies, New York City/USA.
Dr. Hubel has published extensively on European-Russian relations and the Eastern enlargement of the EU. Most recently, he published and edited a book on EU Enlargement and Beyond: the Baltic States and Russia.
Sandra Lavenex
Currently assistant professor in European Studies at the University of Bern, Switzerland, Dr. Lavenex obtained her PhD from the European University Institute in Florence in 1999 based on her research on The Europeanization of Refugee Policies: Between Human Rights and Internal Security (2001).
She authored one of the first monographs on Eastern enlargement and Justice and Home Affairs (Safe Third Countries: Extending the EU asylum and immigration policies to Central and Eastern Europe(1999), and is co-editor (with Emek M. Uçarer) of a book on the external dimension of EU immigration policies entitled Migration and the Externalities of European Integration (2002).
Current projects include an EU-sponsored international research project on The Political Economy of Migration in an Integrating Europe and a comparative study of ‘external governance’ by the EU in relations with its near abroad.
Igor Leshoukov
Director and founder of the Institute of International Affairs in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dr. Leshoukov is Member of the Board of the Russian Association of European Studies and of the Research Committee of European Unification of the International Political Studies Association (IPSA). He also currently lectures on Russian Foreign and Domestic Policy at the EuroUniversity in Tallinn.
In 1996, he did graduate work in European administration and Political Studies at the Colleges of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. He speaks Russian, English, German, French and Arabic.
Igor Leshukov has served several years in the Russian Ministry of External Economic Relations. Afterwards he held administrative positions at the Office of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University and later has joined the School of International Relations of the same university where he was Deputy Dean for External Affairs in 1996-1997.
He has published widely on European integration and EU-Russia relations. He is currently undertaking research related to the Common European Economic Space between Russia and the European Union and energy issues and Russia's relations with Baltic States in the context of EU and NATO Enlargement.
Prof. Jörg Monar
Professor Jörg Monar is Professor of Contemporary European Studies and Politics and Co-Director of the Sussex European Institute. He was until 2001 Professor of Politics and Director of the Centre for European Politics and Institutions, at University of Leicester. Before that he was Director of the Institut für Europäische Politik (Bonn/Berlin) and (permanent) Associate Professor at the College of Europe (Bruges).
His other functions include Chairman of the European Association of Researchers in Federalism (Tübingen), Member of the Academic Council of the College of Europe (Bruges), of the Advisory Board of the Institut für Europäische Politik (Bonn) and of the Council of the Federal Trust for Education and Research (London), Joint Editor of the European Foreign Affairs Review (London), Special Adviser to the House of Lords (London).
Professor Monar is a Professor at the College of Europe (Bruges and Natolin) and has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Bangkok (Chulalongkorn), Genoa, Jena, Nice and at Dartmouth College (Harris Distinguished Visiting Professor).
He has published widely on EU external relations, EU justice and home affairs, constitutional and institutional aspects of the European integration process. His current research priorities include governance and enlargement problems in EU justice and home affairs, EU governance reforms and the development of the European Security and Defence Policy.
Hélène Pellerin
Currently assistant professor and supervisor of graduate studies at the Department of Political Science at the University of Ottawa, Canada, Dr. Pellerin received her PhD from the University of York.
She has published numerous articles on international migration and governance. Her most recent publications include The global governance of international migration in the 1990s (forthcoming), Neoliberal regionalism and the management of people's mobility (2001), and Crisis? What crisis? The politics of migration regulation in the era of globalization (2003).
Her research interests include, among others, international politics and transnational relations, international political economy, migratory movements, and regionalism in Western Europe and the Americas.
Olga Potemkina
Currently head of Regional Studies at the Centre for European Integration Studies in Moscow, Russia. Dr. Potemkina is also a member of the International network on Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, Belgium.
She received her PhD in history from the Institute of Comparative Political Science in 1990, and has over 40 publications in Russian and English to her record. She has written extensively on migration processes in the European Union and Russia; Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) issues; and the impact of EU enlargement on Russian policies.
Dr. Potemkina’s most recent work deals with the ramifications of the Schengen agreement on EU-Russia relations, and JHA cooperation between Russia and the EU.