Jacques Delors (born 20 July 1925) held a series of posts in French banking and state planning at the Banque de France in the 1940s–1960s. He was also active in the Christian Trade Union Confederation (renamed the Democratic Trade Union Confederation in 1964). In 1962 he left the Banque de France, where he had quickly risen to an executive position, to head the social affairs division of the state’s General Planning Commission. From 1969 to 1972 he served as chief adviser on social affairs to the Gaullist Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas. In 1974, Delors joined the French Socialist Party, and became the party’s national delegate for international economic relations in 1976. In 1979 he was elected to the European Parliament, where he served as chairman of the economic and monetary committee. Under President Mitterrand, Delors served as Economics and Finance Minister from 1981–1983, and Economics, Finance, and Budget Minister from 1983–1984. He then became President of the European Commission in January 1985. During his presidency, he oversaw important budgetary reforms and laid the groundwork for the introduction of a Single market within the European Community. In 1996 Delors founded the Paris think tank Notre Europe and remains one of its presidents today.

Mario Monti (born 19 March 1943) received a degree in economics at Bocconi University and pursued his studies at Yale University. From 1978 to 1994, he contributed regularly to the Italian “Corriere della Sera”. Monti served as Rector of Milan’s Bocconi University from 1989 to 1994. In 1994, he was appointed President. After serving as professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of Economics in Bocconi, he lectured at the Universities of Trento and Turin before returning to his alma mater. As a Member of the European Commission from 1999-2004, Monti was in charge of the Single Market, Financial Services and Tax Policy from 1995 until 1999. During the following legislature, he was the European Commissioner in charge of Competition. With his recent report for the Commission on the Single Market, Monti continues to contribute to the European project, and the cornerstone of the European integration, the Single Market.

Joschka Fischer (born 12 April 1948) is a German politician of the Alliance ’90/The Greens. In 1985, he became Minister for the Environment in the Landtag of Hesse. Fischer was again Environment Minister in Hesse from 1991 to 1994, and, later on, became co-chairman of the Greens parliamentary party in the Bundestag. In September 1998, Fischer became Minister of Foreign Affairs. In May 2000, he re-started the discussion about the EU Constitution and defended the federalist approach. From September 2006 until 2007, Joschka Fischer was a senior fellow at the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination and a visiting professor at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, both at Princeton University. Since 2008, Fischer has been employed with the Albright Group, an international strategy consulting firm led by Madeleine Albright.

Pat Cox (born 28 November 1952) is an Irish politician. He is a former economics lecturer, journalist and television presenter. He served as Member of the European Parliament from 1989 until 2004. In 1998, he was elected President of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Group, ELDR. He was unanimously re-elected in June 1999 following the elections to the European Parliament. From 2002 until 2004, he was President of the European Parliament. On 20 May 2004, he was awarded the Karlsprize for his achievements with regard to the enlargement of the European Union and for his work in promoting greater EU democratisation. In 2005, Cox was elected as the new president of the European Movement, an international pro-European association. In June 2009, he actively campaigned during the campaign for the pro Lisbon treaty initiative Ireland for Europe.

Róża Thun is a Polish politician (born 13 April 1954). She graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków with a master’s degree in English philology in 1979. During her studies, she was member, and later spokesperson, of the Student Committee of Solidarity. Between 1977 and 1980, she was also associated with the Workers’ Defence Committee, an organization helping political prisoners and their families. Between 1992 and 2005, Thun was the general director and chairwoman of the Polish Robert Schuman Foundation, a non-governmental organization promoting European integration. Between 2005 and 2009, Thun was the Head of Representation of the European Commission to Poland. She became Member of the European Parliament, after the elections of 2009. As a MEP, Thun is a member of the committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, the delegation for relations with Israel and the delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.

Kalypso Nicolaïdis (born in 1962) holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University, a Master in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, a Master in International Economics and a Diplome Service Public from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. Before moving back to Europe, she taught European affairs and international relations at Harvard University where she was associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government. Nicolaïdis is currently a Professor in International Relations and Director of the European Studies Centre at Oxford University. Professor Nicolaïdis has been much involved in European politics. She was an advisor to the Greek Foreign Minister, George Papandreou on European affairs in 1996 and advisor to the Dutch presidency of the EU on the theme of ‘Europe: a Beautiful Idea’ in 2004. Nicolaïdis also worked with the European Commission on the White Paper on Governance as well as a trade and regulation expert for UNCTAD and the OECD. Most recently, she produced a report on the European Neighbourhood Policy for the European Parliament.

Danuta Hubner (born 8 April 1948) is a Polish economist, academic, and policy maker. In 1971, Hübner obtained her degree in economics from the Warsaw School of Economics, after which she promoted in economics (1974). Hubner has been professor in economics since 1992. She regularly taught abroad. Since 1994, Hubner has been politically active. From 1994-1996, she was the Secretary of State for Industry. In 1997 she became the head of the office of the Polish President. In 1998-2001, she was a member of UN Commission for Europe. From 2001-2003, she was the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and from 2003 to April Minister. Since the accession of Poland to the European Union in May 2004 she has been Member of the European Commission, initially without portfolio. From November 2004 until her resignation in July 2009, she was in charge of regional policy. Since July 2009, she is a Member of the European Parliament where she chairs the Regional Affairs Committee.

Gesine Schwan (born 22 May 1943) is a German political science professor and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In 1962, she began her studies in history, philosophy, romance languages, and political science at the Free University of Berlin and later at University of Freiburg. After research conducted in Warsaw and Kraków, she obtained her Ph.D. in 1970 from FU Berlin for a dissertation on the Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski. In Krakow University, she became assistant professor and continued her work on the critique of Marx for which she received a habilitation in 1975. Schwan was appointed full professor at the Department of Political Science at FU Berlin in 1977. The SDP has nominated her twice as a candidate for the federal presidential elections.

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa (born July 23, 1940) is an Italian banker and economist. He graduated from Bocconi University, Milan in 1966 and received a Master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. After a first job in Germany, he joined the Bank of Italy in 1968, eventually becoming Vice-Director General from 1984 to 1997. In 1980, he became a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, ‘the Group of Thirty‘. From 1993 to 1997, he was president of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The following year, he was the Head of Consob, Italy’s stock market supervision agency. Padoa-Schioppa became a member of the European Central Bank‘s six-member executive board from its foundation in 1998 until the end of May 2005. In 2006, he was appointed Economy and Finance Minister in the government of Romano Prodi, serving until May 2008. In October 2005, he became president of Paris-based think tank Notre Europe, which he still is today.

Elie Barnavi (born in 1946) is a Romanian historian and an Israeli diplomat. After studying history and political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University and the Sorbonne, Elie Barnavi was appointed professor of modern Western history at the University of Tel Aviv, where he directs the Center for International Studies. He was also director of studies at the Institute of Defence and a member of ‘La Paix Maintenant’. After being Israel’s Ambassador to France from 2000 to 2002, he resumed his teaching of history at the University of Tel Aviv. Currently, he is the Chair of the scientific committee of the Museum of Europe in Brussels. He published “A Modern History of Israel”, a “Universal History of the Jews”, “Open Letter to the Jews of France”, and a number of books on sixteenth century France.

Jean-Marc Ferry is a French philosopher and Professor in political science and moral philosophy at the ULB in Brussels. He is also a researcher at the CNRS in Paris and teaches at the Institute of European Studies in Brussels and the College of Europe in Bruges. Ferry is a former fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn). He was awarded with the ‘Prix Louis Marino’ of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France, for the “Question de l’Etat Européen” (2000) and in 1995, he won the price ‘La Bruyere’ of the French Academy in Philosophy, Ethics and Sociology, for the entity of his work. Ferry is known for his dissertations on the post national identity in Europe. His work has been described by Paul Ricoeur as “one of the most important works recently published in the field of social and political philosophy”.

Ulrich Beck is German and (born May 15, 1944) has studied sociology, philosophy, psychology, and political science at Munich University. In 1972, he obtained his title of Doctor of Philosophy and worked as a sociologist at Munich University. Beck was professor at the universities of Münster (1979-1981) and Bamberg (1981-1992) and founded the research centre at the University of Munich, Sonderforschungsbereich in 1999. Currently he is Professor for Sociology at the University of Munich, and has been the British Journal of Sociology LSE Centennial Professor in the Department of Sociology. Beck has received Honorary Doctorates from several European universities. In his work, Beck focuses on modernization, ecological problems, individualization, and globalization. He has also contributed a number of new words in German sociology, including “risk society“, “second modernity” and reflexive modernization.

Amartya Kumar Sen (born 3 November 1933) is an eminent Indian economist and philosopher. He is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he previously served as Master from the years 1998 to 2004. Amartya Sen is best known for his work on famine, social choice theory, welfare economics, and the underlying causes of poverty and hunger. He received the Nobel Prize for his work in mathematical economics in 1998. The government of India awarded him with the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna in 1999. Among academics Sen’s reputation is almost unrivalled. He has served as a full-time or visiting professor at a dozen of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Andrew Duff is a British politician. He is currently spokesman for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) on Constitutional Affairs. He was a member of the Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Convention on the Future of Europe. He represented the Parliament in the Intergovernmental Conference on the Treaty of Lisbon. He is currently the Parliament’s rapporteur on electoral reform. Duff has been the Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament for the East of England since 1999. Elected President of the Union of European Federalists (UEF) in 2008, Duff also chairs the Federalist Intergroup in the European Parliament. Duff was Director of the Federal Trust for Education and Research, 1993-99. He is a founder member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He was Vice-President of the Liberal Democrats, 1994-97, and a City Councillor in Cambridge, 1982-90.

Elmar Brok is a German politician (born 14 May 1946). He studied law and politics in Germany and at the Centre for European Governmental Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He worked as a radio journalist and newspaper correspondent, before he became Senior Vice President for Media Development at Bertelsmann AG. Within the Christian Democratic Party in Germany, Brok has held numerous leadership positions, before entering the European Parliament in 1980. As a member of the Convention on the Constitution for Europe and in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Brok contributed crucially to the Constitution of the European Union. Brok was also the European Parliament Representative on the Council’s Reflection Group for Maastricht II, the European Parliament Representative at the Intergovernmental Conference on the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Parliament Representative at the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference and lately rapporteur on the European Externa Action Service (EEAS). He received many honours, including the First Class Federal Cross of Merit.

Tibor Dessewffy (born December 28 1962) is a Hungarian sociologist. He obtained a degree in Law in 1989 and in Sociology at the Eötvös University. He obtained a PhD in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam in 1996. He was a visiting fellow at the New School for Social Research in 1998 and Mellon Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh in 2001. He won the Pro Scientia and Erdei Ferenc Prize for his academic achievement. He is the scientific leader of the Hungarian researches of the World Internet Project and member of the National Council for Communication and Information Technology. Fields of interest: theories of information society, social effects of the technological development and the sociology of everyday life. Dessewffy is currently chairman of the DEMOS think tank Hungary Foundation and associate professor at the Faculty of Social Siences, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

Sandro Gozi is an Italian politican (born 25 March 1968). He obtained his Law degree from the University of Bologna in 1992. The following years, he studied in London and Paris. In 1996, he received his Doctorate in Public Law from the University of Bologna. From 1996 until 1998, Gozi pursued a Master in International Politics at ULB in Brussels. He became professor and taught at numerous universities, including European College of Parma, University of Bologna, College of Europe in Bruges, University of Calabria and Paris Sciences Po. Gozi ‘s European career started as member of the Cabinet of European Commission Presidents Prodi and Barroso. Currently, Gozi is Member of the Italian chamber of deputies and President of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on the Implementation of the Schengen agreement, Europol and Immigration Affairs. He is also the General Vice Secretary of the European Democratic Party.

Paweł Świeboda (born in 1972) is a graduate of the London School of Economics and the University of London. He served as the EU Advisor to the President of Poland from 1996-2000. He then headed the Office for European Integration in the Chancellery of the President. From 2001-2006 he served as Director of the Department of the European Union in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he was responsible for EU accession negotiations and subsequently institutional reform in the Union and negotiations on the Financial Perspective. In July 2006 he became President of demos EUROPA – Centre for European Strategy. In addition to his role at the BDF, he is also a Member of the Lisbon Council, Member of the Advisory Board of the European Policy Centre, Co-President of BELA (Broader European Leadership Agenda) Foundation, Member of the Council of the Amicus Europae Foundation. He is the author of numerous articles on issues of European integration and international relations. He is columnist on foreign policy in “Gazeta Wyborcza”, Poland’s largest daily newspaper.

Kurt Vandenberghe obtained a licenciate in Romance literatures and linguistics in 1988 at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. In 1999, he graduated in Public and International Affairs at Université Catholique de Louvain. After that, he obtained a Master in International Relations at the John Hopkins University of Washington DC and Bologna, Italy. He started his career in 1993 as manager of Ernst & Young Association management in Brussels. In 1996, Kurt Vandenberghe started working for the European Commission in the DG Transport Research and Development. In 1999 he became member of Cabinet of Philippe Busquin, Commission Member for Research. Particular areas covered research policy, life sciences and biotechnology and Space technology. In 2004 he became Head of Cabinet.

Anna Triandafyllidou received her BA in sociology from Panteion University in Athens, Greece (1990) and her PhD in the Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute of Florence (1995). She has held teaching and research positions at the University of Surrey (1994-95), London School of Economics (1995-97), Consiglio Nazionale per le Ricerche in Rome (1997-99), New York University (2001), Bristol University (2001-02) and the European University Institute of Florence (1992-1994 and 1999-2007). She has been Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges since 2002. She has been awarded a part time Professorship at the European University Institute, in Florence, Italy as of December 2009. She is also Assistant Professor at the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece and Senior Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Athens. Her main areas of research are migration, nationalism, European integration, media and discourse studies and her expertise covers Southern, Western and Central Eastern Europe including comparative highlights with the US.

Diogo Pinto was born in Mozambique. From 1996 until 2002, he studied Sociology at the Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da Empresa. From 1995-1198, he was President of the Portuguese National Youth Council – CNJ. He became national director of Intercultura – AFS Portugal in 2001. In May 2005, he became Secretary General of the European Youth Forum, an organization aiming at empowering young people to participate actively in society and improving their living conditions by representing their interests towards the European Institutions, the Council of Europe, the United Nations and others. He remained in office until May 2009, when he became Secretary General of the European Movement. Pinto is the current Secretary General of the European Movement International, an organization aimed at improving European Integration. He is co-author of two books: “20 Ideias para 2020 – Inovar Portugal”(2005) and “Ideias Perigosas para Portugal”(2010).
In the latter is stated why European Federalism is the best option for Portugal.

Heather Grabbe holds a PhD from Birmingham University and a BA and MA from Oxford University. Before joining the European Commission, Grabbe was deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank, where she published widely on EU enlargement and other European issues. From 2004–2009 she was senior advisor to European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn, responsible in his cabinet for the Balkans and Turkey. Her academic career includes teaching at the London School of Economics, and research at Oxford and Birmingham universities, the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House, London) and the European University Institute (Florence). Grabbe is currently director of the Open Society Institute–Brussels and director of EU affairs for the Soros network.

Imola Streho obtained a degree from the College of Europe. From 2000 to 2002, she was a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School and NYU School of Law where she was the Executive Director of its Jean Monnet Center. From 2002 until 2008, she was a référendaire at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. She is a Doctor of Law by the Law Faculty of the University of Paris 2 (Pantheon-Assas) where she teaches on the European Judicial System and the Law of the International Market (Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales). She has also taught EC law at the College of Europe (Natolin campus), the Central European University in Budapest, the National University of Singapore and the University of Melbourne. She writes in the field of EU law. Currently she is Senior Lecturer at Sciences Po, Paris, where she is Program Director of the Master of European Affairs.

Guy Verhofstadt, former Prime Minister of Belgium, is currently President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament. As rapporteur, he contributed largely to the new European External Action service.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit (born 4 April 1945) is currently co-president of the group European Greens–European Free Alliance in the European Parliament. In 1994 he was elected for the first time to the European parliament.

Sylvie Goulard (born 6 December 1964) is a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. As rapporteur, she contributed largely to the new Europen Financial Supervision .

Isabelle Durant (born 4 September 1954) is currently Vice President of the European Parliament. She is member of The Greens and holds membership in the Budget Committee and the Committee of Transport and Tourism.

Koert Debeuf (born May 25 1974) is the Chief of Cabinet of Guy Verhofstadt, President of the ALDE group in the European Parliament. Debeuf studied Ancient History at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He was president of Klio, the circle of students of Ancient History and Classical Philology; he was president of the students of the Faculty of Arts; he won the Interfaculty Eloquence tournament and he was conference chairman of the Social Council and student representative on the Academic Council of the KU Leuven. In 1995-1996, Debeuf studied in Italy, at the University of Bologna, where he graduated with distinction. In 1998-1999 he started his career as political assistant of Carl Devlies, who was deputy mayor at that time. In 2000 Debeuf became President of the youth division of the Christian’s People Party. Few years later, he left the Christian People Party to join the Liberal Open VLD, where he became the spokesman of Prime Minister Verhofstadt.

Guillaume McLaughlin is currently a policy advisor in the ALDE Group in the European Parliament. Prior to this, he was political advisor to Andrew Duff MEP and as such worked in the Convention on the Future of Europe as well as the Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Before working in the European Parliament, he spent three years at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, dealing with institutional issues and before that, 4 years at the Federal Trust in London, also focusing on European and institutional questions. Guillaume McLaughlin studied at Queen Mary College and SOAS in London. He was born in London, of Franco-British parentage and grew up in Brussels.