TEPSA Board

Prof. Lucia Mokrá

Chairperson of the Board

Prof. Lucia Mokrá is the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. Her main research interests regard the wider concept of European citizenship, fundamental rights after the Lisbon Treaty, the principle of non-discrimination in EU law, humanitarian aid and development cooperation. Having served in the Board of TEPSA since November 2016, Prof. Mokrá was re-elected for a second three-year term as TEPSA Chairperson at TEPSA’s Czech Pre-Presidency Conference, after having initially taken office since 1 July 2019, and after being elected nemine contradicente by TEPSA’s General Assembly in June 2019.

Jim Cloos

Secretary General

Jim Cloos is a high-ranking European official of longstanding esteem. Having taken on a key role in drafting the Maastricht Treaty during the Luxembourgish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 1991, Mr. Cloos has an intricate expertise on EU Affairs and the internal functioning of the European institutions. In the 1990s he served at the European Commission, first as Head of the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Agriculture, and subsequently as Head of Cabinet to the President of the European Commission and his G7/8 Sherpa. Mr. Cloos has been a close collaborator of High Representative Javier Solana in shaping the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. For many years he played a key role in preparing European Council meetings. Before his election as TEPSA Secretary-General, he served as Deputy Director General for General and Institutional Policy at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union.

Mr. Dries Callens

Treasurer

Dries Callens has worked 17 years a tax officer specialized in company taxation for the Belgian Federal Public Service Finance.  At this moment he’s working for the Federal Accountant, a public service which is responsible for the accounts of Belgian federal state.  Besides this he has been treasurer JEF-Europe and of European Movement International.  He was elected as treasurer of TEPSA in Zagreb in 2019.

Prof. Danijela Jaćimović

Board Member

Danijela Jaćimović is a Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Montenegro. Her fields of interest include International Economics and European Integration. She was a member of the Doctoral Committee at the Faculty of Economics 2017-2022 and was a member of the Doctoral School of the University of Montenegro from 2016 to 2018. She is also a member of the negotiation teams for EU Accession Chapters 25 and 33. She has worked with the IMF and the World Bank staff at the Central Bank of Montenegro in developing the Research and Statistical Department, financed by USAID, 2000-2005. She was awarded Visiting Junior Fellowships 2003-2010 at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is an affiliated Scholar at the Bentley University’s DART (Data Analytics Research Team). She is also the holder of a Jean Monnet Module 2012-2015 and a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence 2020-2023.

Prof. Petr Kratochvíl

Board Member

Professor Petr Kratochvíl is a Full Professor of International Relations, Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Relations, Lecturer at Sciences Po in Paris and several Czech universities, and member of the TEPSA Board. Petr Kratochvíl represents the IIR in various international associations such as the Trans European Policy Studies Association or the European Consortium for Political Research. He has published extensively on European integration, EU-Russian relations, institutional reform and the EU enlargement, the role of religion in international affairs, and international relations theory. The book The European Union and the Catholic Church: Political Theology of European Integration, co-authored by Tomáš Doležal and published in 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan even won the prestigious Religion and International Relations Book Award of the American International Studies Association. He is also often called upon to present his analyses by various Czech and foreign media.

Dr. Nicoletta Pirozzi

Board Member

Dr. Nicoletta Pirozzi is Head of Programme on European Union and Institutional Relations Manager at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). She works mainly on EU governance, EU security and defence policies, civilian crisis management, EU policy towards sub-Saharan Africa and EU relations with United Nations, NATO and African Union in the field of peace and security. She is the Scientific Coordinator of the Horizon 2020 project “EU IDEA – Integration and Differentiation for Effectiveness and Accountability”. From 2013 to 2019, she was Adjunct Professor at “Roma Tre” University in Rome. In 2018, she was Associate Analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris and Marshall Memorial Fellow. In 2012, she served as Seconded National Expert at the European External Action Service. Dr. Pirozzi is author and editor of a number of publications, and an active member of various research associations and institutions. She is also member of IAI’s Steering Committee and Executive Committee, and of the Scientific Board of the on-line journal AffarInternazionali.it.

Dr. Kristi Raik

Board Member

Dr Kristi Raik is the Director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute at ICDS since February 2018. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Turku. She has previously served inter alia as a Senior Research Fellow and Acting Programme Director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki. She was also a Desk Officer for Ukraine and Moldova at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels and the International Centre for Policy Studies in Kyiv. She has a PhD from the University of Turku, and has published, lectured and commented widely on European foreign and security policy. Her areas of expertise include Estonia’s and Finland’s foreign and security policy, EU-Russa relations, the Eastern Partnership and Europe in a changing global order.

Paul Schmidt

Board Member

Paul Schmidt is Secretary General of the Austrian Society for European Politics, which promotes analysis and communication on European affairs. Prior to that he worked at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, both in Vienna and at their Representative Office in Brussels at the Permanent Representation of Austria to the European Union. Paul currently dedicates his time to discussing and advancing European integration, with a special focus on the future of the EU and public opinion. His analyses, comments and op-eds are regularly published in Austrian and international media. He is also a co-editor, alongside Michael Kaeding and Johannes Pollak, of the TEPSA book series “Future of Europe: Views from the capitals”. He has been contributing to this project since 2019, editing each edition alongside Michael Keading and Johannes Pollak.

Asst. Prof. Marco Siddi

Board Member

Marco Siddi is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Cagliari, Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and Adjunct Professor at the universities of Helsinki and Tampere. His research focuses on relations between the European Union and Russia, EU energy and climate policy, as well as identity and memory politics in Europe. He has published in some of the most renowned peer-reviewed journals in his research field, including the Journal of European Public Policy, Geopolitics, Europe-Asia Studies, Politics and International Politics. He received a PhD in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh, a Master of Advanced International Studies from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and a Bachelor of Arts in Modern History and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford.

Dr. Funda Tekin

Board Member

Dr. Funda Tekin is Director of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) in Berlin, and Vice-Director and Project Director of the Horizon 2020 project “The Future of EU-Turkey Relations: Mapping Dynamics and Testing Scnearios” (FEUTURE) at the Centre of Turkey and European Union Studies (CETEUS), University of Cologne. Her fields of research and expertise include EU enlargement in general and EU Turkey relations in particular, the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, flexibility and differentiation of EU integration, the added value of Europe as well as the implications of treaty reforms and the institutionalization of the EU.

Dr. Ilke Toygür 

Board Member

Ilke Toygür is CATS Fellow at German Institute for International and Security Studies (SWP Berlin) and teaches “Geopolitics of Europe” at University Carlos III of Madrid. Her main research areas include European integration, EU institutions, political parties and elections in Western Europe, Geopolitics of Europe and transatlantic relations, and Turkey’s relations with the West. At the beginning of her career, she worked in Istanbul and Brussels for Economic Development Foundation (IKV), a Turkish think-tank focusing on the European Union and Turkey-EU relations. In 2016, she completed her PhD degree in Political Science in the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Autonomous University of Madrid. Right before completing her PhD, she was granted the prestigious Mercator-IPC Fellowship in Istanbul Policy Center, Sabancı University. After finishing her doctorate studies, she worked for five years at Elcano Royal Institute, the leading Spanish think-tank on foreign policy, as an Analyst for European Affairs. She has been a Visiting Researcher in European University Institute (EUI), University of Mannheim, and Brookings Institution. She is a Fellow of Transatlantic Relations Initiative of the IE University and serves as a Board Member of Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA). Her analyses appeared in Brookings Institution, Carnegie Europe, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Foreign Affairs and El País, among others. She frequently comments on current developments in Europe on international media. She is native in Turkish and also speaks fluent English and Spanish.

Richard Youngs

Board Member

Richard Youngs is a Senior Fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, based at Carnegie Europe. He works on EU foreign policy and on issues of international democracy. Youngs is also a Professor of international relations at the University of Warwick. Prior to joining Carnegie in July 2013, he was the director of the European think tank FRIDE in Madrid. He has held positions as senior analyst for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as an EU Marie Curie fellow at the Norwegian Institute for International Relations in Oslo. He was a Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, DC, from 2012 to 2013. Youngs has authored fifteen books. His most recent works are Rebuilding European Democracy: Resistance and Renewal in an Illiberal Age (Bloomsbury/Tauris, 2021) and The European Union and Global Politics (Macmillan, 2021).