The Embassy of the Republic of Poland to the Kingdom of Sweden in cooperation with the Embassy of the Czech Republic and the Embassy of the Slovak Republic present the seminar:
1989 – The Year of Changes
Poland and Czechoslovakia on a Peaceful Way to Freedom
Tuesday, 7th October 2014 at 14:00 at Uppsala University
Blåsenhus, Bertil Hammer Case-Room, von Kraemers Allé 1A, 752 37 Uppsala
Program
14:00 Welcome coffee
14:30 – 16:00
Seminar Meeting Session with participation of Mr Eugeniusz Smolar, Mr Martin Palouš and Mr František Šebej
Moderator
Mrs Ann-Cathrine Haglund
The seminar will be held in English and open to the public
Who is who
Moderator
Ann-Cathrine Haglund
Member of Parliament (Riksdagen) 1979-1993 Moderate party
Member of the Parl. Standing Committee on Health and Social Welfare 1979-1988
Member of the Parl. Standing Committee on Education 1988-1991
President of the Parl. Standing Committee on Education 1991-1993
Member of the International Parliamentary Union 1991-1993
Substitute of the Council of Europe Assembly 1989-1992
Member of the Council of Europe Assembly 1992
President of the Swedish Delegation of the Council of Europe Assembly 1992-1993
Member of the Swedish Delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1984 and in 1985
President of the National Association of Moderate Women 1981-1990
Member of the Executive Board of the Parliamentary Group of the Moderate Party 1986-1993
Participated in many international – UN and other – conferences
County Governor of Malmöhus län 1993-1996
County Governor of Uppsala län 1997-2002
Represented the Swedish Governors in the European Days, (a European Association of Governors, Voivods, Prefets etc). Since 2002 Honorary Member of European Days.
Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland in Uppsala 2004-2010
Eugeniusz Smolar
Polish foreign policy analyst
Political prisoner 1968-1969, jailed also for organising protests against invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies.
Political émigré: in Sweden (1970-1975) he studied Sociology and Political Sciences at Uppsala University. In 1973 with a group of friends has started an émigré quarterly “Aneks”.
Since 1975 – journalist and later director of the Polish Section of the BBC World Service in London.
Assisted democracy movements and later “Solidarność” in Poland, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, Helsinki human rights groups in the USSR and in other communist countries.
Following return to Poland in the 90s he became a Deputy Chairman of the Polish Radio and its Program Director (1998-2005). President of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw (2005-2010), later Senior Fellow at the Polish Institute of International Affairs .
He was a Chairman of the Polish-Czech Forum and has been involved in the Polish-German, Polish-Russian and Polish-Ukrainian dialogue.
Professionally he concentrates on issues related to the European
Martin Palouš
signatory and spokesman of Charter 77, former Czechoslovak politician, after the Velvet Revolution Member of the Federal Assembly, Czech diplomat, University professor and at present also Member of the Board of Trustees of Vaclav Havel’s Library
Studied natural sciences, philosophy and international law. He was one of the first signatories of Charter 77 and became its spokesman in 1986. From the start of the 1990s he has worked at universities at home and abroad. At present he is a visiting professor at the Florida International University in Miami and a member of the Board of Trustees of Vaclav Havel’s Library in Prague. In the years 1994-1998 he chaired the Czech Helsinki Committee, while he twice served as deputy Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs (1990-1992 and 1998-2001). Between 2001 and 2005 he was Czech ambassador to the United States and from 2006 to 2011 was the Czech Republic’s permanent representative at the United Nations.
He has published dozens of papers on philosophical, social science and international law issues in the Czech Republic and abroad, and has translated works by Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin.
František Šebej
RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE
Between 1971 — 1980 František Šebej worked as Researcher at Medical faculty at Comenius University, Research Institute of Human Bioclimathology and Institute of Experimental psychology in Bratislava. Later he became the Director of the Laboratory of Social and Biological communication at Slovak Academy of Sciences and Member of Presidium of Slovak Academy of Sciences. In year 1992 he was elected the President of M.E.S.A. 10 — Macroeconomical and Social Analysis, Bratislava. In 1996 he became Senior visiting fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna and Program director at the Institute for Public Affairs in Bratislavaplus Editor and editor-in-chief of Domino weekly magazine. Between 2005- 2010 he worked as Editor of Týždeň weekly magazine.
POLITICAL POSITIONS
Between 1990-1992 František Šebej was Member of the Parliament, Federal Assembly of CSFR, House of Nations, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Head of the CSFR delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe and Vice-chairman of the Democratic Party.
1998 he became Member of the Slovak Parliament, Chairman of the Committee for European Integration, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Head of the Slovak parliamentary delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO where he stayed until 2002.
Since 2001 he has been the Vice-chairman of the Civic Conservative Party, presently he is a member of Slovak – Hungarian MOST – HÍD Party and since 2010 he has been Member of the Slovak Parliament, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
