Ukraine Security Forum: a tipping point for Europe’s security and democracy

Geert Cami co-founded Friends of Europe, the action-oriented think tank, which in 2011 launched both its citizen’s platform, Debating Europe and its European Young Leaders Programme. In 2015, Friends of Europe integrated the Security and Defence agenda thinktank. As Secretary General, Geert mainly deals with the strategic development of Friends of Europe, coordinating the work of the high-level Boards involved in the governance of the organisation and chairing the Leadership meetings. He oversees both the financial health and the successful running of the organisation and its flagship initiatives and focuses on the expansion and the activation of Friends of Europe’s vast network of trustees, European young leaders and other senior political, corporate, media and societal contacts and partners throughout the world.

 In 2019, Geert founded TownHall Europe (the Davignon Centre for New Leadership) and in 2020, he co-founded the Africa-Europe Foundation (AEF) in partnership with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation (MIF).

 Geert headed the European conference organising, press relations and publishing company Forum Europe for more than ten years, and managed the revival of one of Belgium’s finest architectural examples of Art Nouveau, after creating La Maison de l’Europe in the prestigious 100-year-old Bibliothèque Solvay.

 At the outset of his career, Geert worked for a few years in the Humanitarian Office of the European Commission as a deputy in the newly set-up information and communications unit. His focus was mainly on raising the profile of the EU’s humanitarian efforts throughout the world, through publications and media initiatives such as exhibitions, television debates or Humanitarian Days in Member States.

 He also worked briefly as a teacher and TV journalist for two music programmes at Belgian public Radio 1.

Benoit Cormier, a Director with Teneo in Brussels, specialises in European and international affairs, aerospace and defence and communications. Previously a French diplomat, he held roles including Deputy Director for Press and Communications in Washington, D.C., Deputy Consul General in Hong Kong and Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU’s Political and Security Committee. Selected as a Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellow, Cormier advised on international digital strategies at the U.S. State Department. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins’ SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, focusing on international communications, transatlantic relations and the European Union.

Georges Dallemagne, Member of the Belgian House of Representatives, represents Les Engagés in the Brussels constituency. Dallemagne is Vice Chairman of the Committee of Inquiry on the March 22, 2016 terrorist attacks and co-chairs the Taiwan-Belgium friendship group. He is also chairman of friendship groups for several countries including Ukraine, Thailand and Iraq. With prior experience as a Senator and Vice-Mayor of Brussels City, he has a strong background in governance and international humanitarian work, including roles at Handicap International and Médecins Sans Frontières.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is a Dutch politician who notably served as the 11th Secretary-General of NATO. He also previously worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch delegation of the NATO headquarters in Brussels. He now works as President of the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) of the Netherlands, an independent body which advises government and parliament on foreign policy. Furthermore, he was appointed to the Pieter Kooijmans Chair for Peace, Law and Security at Leiden University.

Wouter De Vriendt is a member of the Belgian Parliament, representing the Groen party. He currently serves as the Group Leader for Ecolo-Groen and holds the position of Chair of the Ostend City Council.

With a distinguished career in Belgian and European politics, Isabelle Durant has held the offices of Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Transport and Energy, and Senator in the Belgian Government. She also served as Vice-President of the European Parliament, President of the European Union Council of Ministers of Transport and as Deputy-Secretary General and Acting Secretary General of UNCTAD. With a wealth of experience collaborating with civil society and the private sector, her time as European Parliament Vice-President included responsibility for relations with civil society. Durant has held posts as a senior consultant on the empowerment of women in local government for the UNDP and as a member of Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region in Belgium.

A serial entrepreneur and fintech expert from Lithuania, Daumantas Dvilinskas is the Co-Founding CEO of TransferGo, a London-based, high-growth and purely digital global money transfer service. Its innovative digital ‘local in, local out’ business model works with banks worldwide to enable cheaper, faster and safer cross-border money transfers. TransferGo’s main goal is to increase the accessibility of transfers to migrant workers, who make regular payments to their families back at home, by reducing costs and facilitating same-day purchasing power. Dvilinskas challenges monopolies in the banking industry by targeting niche customers with a superior product experience. He has also co-founded Pinevio, a social content discovery platform that enables users to discover content from people with shared interests. Dvilinskas is a recipient of the Global Lithuanian Award, which is bestowed upon Lithuanian diaspora professionals in recognition of their contribution to the economy, science, culture and international presence of Lithuania.

Štefan Füle is a Czech politician and diplomat who previously served as the Czech Special Envoy to the OSCE and the Western Balkans. Having started his career in the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he worked as Czech Ambassador to Lithuania and to the UK, as well as becoming Czech Permanent Representative to NATO. In 2010, he became the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy where he was instrumental in setting up and developing the Eastern Partnership with six countries in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus.

Rose Gottemoeller is the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining Stanford, Gottemoeller was the deputy secretary-general of NATO. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the under secretary for arms control and international security at the United States Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification and compliance, she was the chief US negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, the first female President of Croatia, has extensive experience in politics, diplomacy, and security. She served as Croatia’s first female Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to the United States, and Assistant Secretary General of NATO. Grabar-Kitarović is a member of the International Olympic Committee, GLOBSEC International Advisory Council, and various non-profit boards, including Friends of Europe and the US Atlantic Council. She is involved with the UN Alliance of Civilizations, serves as Global Ambassador for Immunization for Women Political Leaders, and is chair emerita of the Council of Women World Leaders. She also co-chairs the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board and is a member of the Committee of Independent Eminent Persons of the European Parliament.

The former president of Lithuania and European commissioner, Dalia Grybauskaitė currently serves as the Co-Chair of the United Nations High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI). Previously, she has chaired the Council of Women World Leaders and held several positions as a Lithuanian diplomat and politician, including as the country’s finance minister, as well as minister plenipotentiary at the Lithuanian embassy to the United States and at the Lithuanian Mission to the EU. Notably, Grybauskaitė played a key role in improving the relations between Lithuania and the EU as the deputy chief negotiator of Lithuania’s Association Agreement with the EU.

Benjamin Haddad, a member of the French Parliament, is the spokesperson for the Renaissance group at the Parliament and a member of the Foreign Affairs and European Affairs Committees. As Senior Director of the Europe Centre at the Atlantic Council, he advocates for transatlantic unity and greater European responsibility. He authored “Le paradis perdu: L’Amérique de Trump et la fin des illusions européennes” analysing the historical and geopolitical forces that determined the transition from a long period of liberal optimism to an era of retrenchment in the US and Europe.

Gert Jan Koopman is the Director-General of the Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, prior to which he served as the director-general of the European Commission’s budget department. In this role, he contributed to putting in place the European Union’s €800bn NextGenerationEU recovery plan, as well as the €18bn MFA+ for Ukraine. He has worked to enable its financing on the capital markets through a sovereign-style funding system. Having served the EU for nearly three decades, Koopman was previously in charge of state aid control at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. His earlier assignments included senior management posts in the department for economic and financial affairs, the Commission’s economic service, as well as enterprise and industry, which supervises the smooth running of the single market. 

Prior to joining Friends of Europe, Dharmendra Kanani was director of policy at the European Foundation Centre (EFC). He was the England director at the Big Lottery Fund, the largest independent funder in the UK and fourth largest in the world. Dharmendra has held senior positions in the public and voluntary sectors and advisor to numerous ministerial policy initiatives across the UK.

Iryna Krasnoshtan is an analyst with extensive experience in security, defence matters and NATO-Ukraine relations. She spent over 11 years at the NATO Representation to Ukraine, including as a Political Analyst. Her international experience includes roles at the Embassy of France in Ukraine, OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission to Ukraine, and an internship in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Canada. Krasnoshtan is also an Alumna of the George C. Marshall Center and has worked as an adjunct professor and co-seminar leader for the Seminar on Regional Security. She was a James S. Denton Transatlantic Fellowship holder with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in 2022.

Denys Maliuska is the Ukrainian Minister of Justice. Prior to this role, Maliuska worked as a Private Sector Development Consultant and Expert for the World Bank Group, focusing on technical assistance to the governments of Ukraine, Belarus, and Central Asia. Before joining the World Bank, he was a lawyer specializing in business law, dispute resolution and bankruptcy at the Business Law firm. 

A human rights lawyer and defender, Oleksandra Matviichuk is the first-ever Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She was awarded the esteemed prize for her work with the Center for Civil Liberties on democratic reform campaigns in Ukraine and the OSCE region. The organisation has been documenting war crimes committed by Russian troops since the initial invasion of Crimea, but also develops legislative changes, exercises public oversight over law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, and implements international solidarity programmes. Matviichuk coordinated the Euromaidan SOS civic initiative to provide legal assistance following the government’s crackdown on Euromaiden protesters, which has since monitored political persecution in the illegally occupied regions of Crimea and Donbas. Matviichuk has led similar campaigns, including #LetMyPeopleGo and #SaveOlegSentsov, to fight for the release of political prisoners detained by Russian authorities. Having authored reports for several United Nations bodies, the Council of Europe, the EU, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court, she received the Democracy Defender Award and is the country’s first female candidate to be nominated to the UN Committee against Torture.

Prior to his current position at Teneo, Philippe Maze-Sencier served as Chair of Global Public Affairs of Hill & Knowlton Strategies (H+K) and Managing Director at McLarty Associates’ Brussels and Washington DC offices. He has been working at the nexus of policy, government relations and communications on transatlantic issues and oversaw operations in India, the Middle East and Africa in various sectors ranging from aerospace to energy to defence. Previously, Maze-Sencier held roles at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, and at the delegation of the European Commission in Washington DC.

Jonas Ohman is a Swedish-born writer, journalist, filmmaker, and interpreter living in Lithuania. Ohman founded the NGO Blue/Yellow in 2014 to support Ukraine against Russian aggression. Blue/Yellow has provided about 85mn euro in support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, making it the largest NGO in Western Europe supporting Ukraine’s military. The NGO delivers urgent non-lethal aid such as drones, night vision, and electronic warfare equipment to frontline units.

Kajsa Ollongren, currently the Minister of Defence, has a distinguished career in the Dutch civil service. Starting at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, she became a policymaker focused on Central and Eastern Europe, where she trained young political parties in newly established democracies. She later served as Head of Parliamentary Affairs, Director of European Integration and Strategy, and Deputy Director General. Ollongren then moved to the Ministry of General Affairs, becoming Deputy Secretary General and later Secretary General. Previously, she served as Amsterdam’s alderwoman and first deputy mayor. She also served as minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and deputy prime minister.

Hanno Pevkur is currently serving as the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Estonia. Prior to that, he was a member of the 11^th, 13^th and 14^th Riigikogu and has held several ministerial positions: minister of the Interior, minister of Justice, minister of Social Affairs. Having started his career in law, he went on to serve in the Nõmme District Administration in Tallinn, first as an administrative secretary and later as city district elder. Pevkur was a member of the Tallinn City Council, Chairman of the Nõmme District Administrative Board, and an advisor to the Minister of Justice.

Colonel Michael Ryan previously served as the deputy assistant secretary of defence for European and NATO policy at the Pentagon, following a distinguished career in the US Air Force and Senior Executive Service. His extensive background in world affairs includes previous service at the United States Mission to the European Union, European Command Headquarters (USEUCOM) and Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as NATO headquarters. A former fellow specialising in national defence at the US Congress, he has also lectured extensively throughout Europe and the US. Ryan began his career as a fighter pilot flying an A-10 in Europe during the Cold War.

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.

Kadri Simson is an Estonian politician from the Centre Party, currently serving as European Commissioner for Energy in the Von der Leyen Commission. She was previously Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure in Jüri Ratas’ first cabinet. During the Estonian Presidency in the Council of the EU, Simson chaired meetings of energy and transport ministers in the TTE Council and ministers of economy in the EU Competitiveness Council. Simson was a member of the 11th, 12th and 13th Riigikogu and was elected to the 14th Riigikogu in 2019.

In his current role as Managing Director of Enabel, Van Wetter leads on the implementation of Belgium’s bilateral cooperation policies. Together with its Belgian and international partners, Enabel provides solutions to urgent global challenges, such as climate change, peace and security, social and economic inequality, and human mobility, and promotes global citizenship. Under his leadership, Enabel manages some 170 projects in 20 countries across Africa and the Middle East, as well as in Belgium itself. Van Wetter started his career as a strategy consultant for Arthur Andersen before moving into the international cooperation sector.

Dr Valbona Zeneli currently holds the role of Senior Fellow for Peace, Security and Defence at Friends of Europe, and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States, with a dual affiliation at the Europe Center and the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Transatlantic Security Initiative. From 2011 to 2023, she served as a Professor of National Security Studies and Chair of Strategic Engagements at the U.S. Department of Defense’s George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. She is also a visiting scholar for 2023-2024 at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University and a visiting fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre (RSC) at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Dr Zeneli specialises in transatlantic relations, strategic competition, NATO, globalisation, European Union enlargement and the Western Balkans. In 2023, she won the Inspiration for Women Award.