KEYNOTE ADDRESS
20th Czech and Slovak Studies Workshop
March 18-21, 2021
TRANSATLANTIC COOPERATION IN PANDEMIC TIMES
9:00 am (EDT) | 1:00 pm (GMT) | 2:00 pm (CET)
REGISTER: https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMkdu2hpj4uGdG3ZbUonmX4tSawD61rDL...
SPEAKER:
Pavol Demeš, Senior Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States
DESCRIPTION:
The COVID-19 pandemic affected Europe and America in a particularly dramatic manner. Health systems, economies, and social life in the most developed countries have been going through severe tests last year. This keynote lecture will focus on the comparative aspects of the COVID-19 crisis in Europe and the United States, look at its impact on transatlantic relations, and bring examples of cooperation in combating this global pandemic.
BIO:
Pavol Demeš is a well-known Slovak expert on international relations and civil society, an author, and a photographer. Prior to the Velvet Revolution, Demeš was a bio-medical researcher at Comenius University in Bratislava. He is a graduate of Charles University in Prague. After democratic changes in 1989, he served in the Slovak government and was the co-founder of the Slovak Academic Information Agency-Service Center for the Third Sector, a leading NGO in the country. Appointed first to the Ministry of Education, he was later named Minister of International Relations (1991-2) and served subsequently as the Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of the Slovak Republic Michal Kovac (1993-1997). In 1999, he was awarded a six-month public policy research fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. From 2000-2010, he was the Director for Central and Eastern Europe for the German Marshall Fund of the US-based in Bratislava. Currently, he is a non-resident senior fellow with GMFUS and an external advisor to the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has his own program on international relations and diplomacy on an Internet TV of the Slovak Press Agency. He published several books and numerous articles. Demeš has served on boards of domestic and international non-profit organizations, among others: the European Foundation Center, the European Cultural Foundation, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the European Endowment for Democracy. He played important role in the EU's civil society development program in Slovakia and democratization efforts in the Balkans and Eastern Partnership countries.
Selected Awards:
The EU-US Democracy and Civil Society Award (1998), the USAID Democracy and Governance Award (1999), a six-month public policy research fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. (1999), Royal Dutch decoration Knight of the Order of Orange
Nassau (2005), Yugoslav Star of First Class (2005), South-East Europe Media Organization Human Rights Award (2009), and the Medal of Honor from the Friends of Slovakia (2011).
The full conference program will be available here: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/creees/visitors/czech-slovak-workshop.