Transatlantic cooperation and Europe's Southern neighbourhood

Since beginning his career with the Hungarian Foreign Service, Gábor Iklódy has built up a distinguished record in security policy and multilateral diplomacy, a large part of which he devoted to Euro-Atlantic integration. In his current capacity, he oversees integrated civilian-military strategic planning in the areas of maritime security, EU peacekeeping and humanitarian missions and operations. Previously, Iklódy served as NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, responsible for the development and delivery of the Alliance’s approach to cyber defence, counter-terrorism, WMD non-proliferation and energy security.

Pauline Massart leads Friends of Europe’s Peace, Security and Defence pillar, developing the work programme, projects and partnerships on global peace,  security and defence issues. She has spearheaded projects such as the think-tank’s global cyber-scorecard and Friends of Europe’s global online brainstorm which gathers thousands of security experts from across the globe. Massart is also Vice-President for Operations and Outreach of WIIS – Women in International Security Brussels.

Giles Merritt is the Founder of Friends of Europe, and was its Secretary General between 1999 and 2015, and its Chairman between 2016 and 2020.

A former Financial Times Brussels Correspondent, Giles Merritt is a journalist, author and broadcaster who has for over four decades specialised in European public policy questions. In 2010 he was named by the Financial Times as one of its 30 most influential “Eurostars”, together with the European Commission’s President and NATO’s Secretary General.

Giles Merritt joined the Financial Times in 1968, and from 1972 until 1983 he was successively FT correspondent in Paris, Dublin/Belfast, and Brussels. From 1984 to 2010 he was a columnist for the International Herald Tribune (IHT), where his Op-Ed page articles ranged widely across EU political and economic issues.

In 1982 he published “World Out of Work”, an award-winning study of unemployment in industrialised countries. In 1991, his second book “The Challenge of Freedom” about the difficulties facing post-communist Eastern Europe was published in four languages. His book “Slippery Slope: Europe’s Troubled Future” (Oxford University Press 2016), was shortlisted for the European Book Prize.

Magnus Nordenman leads and manages the Scowcroft Center’s projects and programming related to transatlantic security, the future of NATO, Nordic-Baltic defence, and maritime issues. An expert in his field, he has provided advice and insights to both the US government and NATO. Before joining the Atlantic Council, Nordenman worked as a defence analyst, focusing on the US defence budget, US foreign basing, the unmanned vehicles market and current US military operations. He is also the author of two recent reports: “NATO in an era of global competition” and “The naval alliance: preparing NATO for a maritime century”.

Teri Schultz is a Brussels-based freelance reporter covering the European Union and NATO for National Public Radio, CBS Radio News and Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Throughout her long career in journalism, she has worked as the State Department reporter for Fox News Channel, a Knight International Press Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, and a freelance television reporter for Reuters, CNN and the Finnish Broadcasting Company. Schultz has a particular interest in Afghanistan, to which she has made six reporting trips.

Retiring from NATO in September 2018 after 38 years at the organisation, Jamie Shea has occupied a number of senior positions at NATO across a wide range of areas, including external relations, press and media, and policy planning. As NATO’s spokesperson, he was the face of the alliance during the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts. He later worked as the director of policy planning in the private office of former secretary general Rasmussen during the preparation of NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept. Shea is also a regular lecturer and conference speaker on NATO and European security affairs.

Ambassador Stefano Stefanini’s long diplomatic career has earned him a reputation as a distinguished expert in transatlantic affairs, international security, defense industry, and Western and European relations with Russia. He has held various high-level positions such as: diplomatic adviser to the then-President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano; Permanent Representative at NATO where he contributed to the drafting of NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept, and deputy chief of mission at the Italian Embassy in Washington. He has also previously served at the United Nations in New York and Moscow. Ambassador Stefanini is a recipient of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and has received honors from several foreign governments.