CZECH REPUBLIC, May 4 - Minister for European Affairs

Martin Dvořák was born in Prague, but his family soon moved to Pardubice, where he grew up.

Education

After completing his studies at the Pardubice grammar school, he entered the finance department at the University of Economics in Prague, graduating with the degree of engineer.

Career and Public Service

He gained his first work experience as an economist at the corporate directorate of the East Bohemian Meat Industry. After conflicts with the communist regime, he was transferred to the technical section and to production.

In November 1989, he and his friends founded the Civic Forum in Hradec Králové, he took care of its economic section. The following year, he was elected the first post-revolutionary mayor of Hradec Králové. He managed to defend his position in the next municipal elections and remained in it until 1998. At the same time, he also served on the board of the Union of Towns and Municipalities of the Czech Republic, later becoming its vice-chairman.

This was followed by his first foreign assignment. In October 1999, he went to Kosovo for two and a half years as a member of the UN mission for post-war reconstruction. He was in charge of the reconstruction of the towns of Istog and Gjakovä and the development of the Pejë region. I described my experiences from this mission in the book Kosovo under, which was published with a foreword by Václav Havel in 2001. Subsequently, in 2003 he moved to Iraq, where he worked on the establishment of temporary local governments in the provinces in the south of the country. He later worked in the administrative team of the Council for International Coordination in Baghdad, where he later became Deputy Director of the Department for Donor Coordination.

After returning from Iraq, he started working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As an observer of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, he went to Ukraine in autumn 2004 to monitor the course of the presidential elections during the so-called Orange Revolution. In January 2005, he was sent to our embassy in Washington as an employee of the commercial and economic section, and after two years he became its head.

After returning to the Czech Republic in 2009, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the director of the department of bilateral economic relations and export support. He remained in this position until August 2012, when he went to the USA again, this time as consul general at the consulate in New York.

From there, he moved to Kuwait as ambassador in 2017, where he was in charge of Kuwait and Qatar. From June 2021, he worked in Prague as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In May 2023, he became Minister for European Affairs.

Awards and medals

He is the holder of the NATO medal for assistance in the expansion of NATO, the Celestýn Opitz Award for humanitarian and development activities in Kosovo and Iraq, and for a lifelong attitude towards service to people and society, the Golden Memorial Medal of the University Hradec Králové for services to the development of the university, the Bronze and the Silver Memorial Medal of Charles University for services to the development of science, culture and education, the Jan Evagelista Purkyně Memorial Medal of the Military Medical Academy for services to the development of military medical education, and also the A. G. Bell Medal for the development of telecommunications in the Czech Republic. He is also the bearer of the golden Janský plaque for voluntary blood donors.