Pierre Mirel

Dr. Pierre Mirel received his PhD in Public Law from Poitiers University . He has worked for the French embassies in Cairo (1971-74) and in Saïgon (1974-76), as well as at the International Institute for Public Administration, Paris (1977-81). He joined the European commission in 1981, where he spent a large part of his career on EU enlargement: he worked on setting up the PHARE assistance programme, acted as head of relations with Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, directed the accession negotiations with Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia, as well as Croatia and Turkey. After 2006 he focused on building the EU’s relationship with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, until he retired at the end of 2013. He is a lecturer at Sciences Politiques-Paris. His publications include L’Egypte des Ruptures (Sindbad, 1982) and a chapter about EU enlargement and the European neighbourhood policy in Jacques Rupnik’s book “Géopolitique de la Démocratisation, l’Europe et ses voisinages” (Presses de Sciences Politiques-Paris, 2014).