Josef Zieleniec
Josef Zieleniec ( born April 28, 1946 in Moscow) is a Czech politician. From 1992 to 1997 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and demokraté 2004-2009 Member of the European Parliament for the party SNK Evropští.
Training
Zieleniec studied economics at the University of Economics in Prague and earned a postgraduate ( CSc. ) at the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Political and professional activities
After the dissolution of the Civic Forum in 1991, he was among the founders of the Civic Democratic Party ( ODS) and became its Vice- Chairman. Before the disintegration of Czechoslovakia, he was Minister of the newly established Czech Ministry of International Relations and accompanied the negotiations on the Dismembration. Until 1997 he served in the Cabinets of Václav Klaus as Minister of International Relations and Foreign Minister. He contributed significantly to the creation of the German - Czech Declaration.
In the fall of 1997, when the ODS was rocked by a financial scandal, Zieleniec resigned from all offices and stepped out as one of the first significant members from the party. For some years he retired to the private sector.
2000 Zieleniec entered successfully as a non-party candidate on the list of four-party coalition to the Senate elections. In 2004 he moved to the SNK Evropští demokraté to the European Parliament and worked in the Foreign Affairs Committee. After the Senate elections in 2006, when his party was unsuccessful in the Czech Republic, he resigned from all party posts.
Zieleniec was interested in the candidacy for the office of President of the Czech Republic, queuing for the 2008 elections. However, he was not prepared and played in pre-election media coverage, not matter.
After he resigned from the European Parliament in 2009, he ran unsuccessfully in the 2010 senatorial elections, this time again as a non-party member on the list of party veci veřejné.
Currently Zieleniec teaches in the Department of Political Science at the branch of the New York University in Prague.