Ambassador Dr. Ney has been a member of the German Foreign Office since 1986. Until his arrival in Sarajevo he was the European Correspondent of the Foreign Office. In this capacity, he was responsible for coordinating the German input into the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy which in turn involved covering policy on the Western Balkans.
Ambassador Dr. Ney studied law at the universities of Würzburg and Geneva, as well as politics and economics at Oxford (1976-1983). He has a law degree from the University of Würzburg and an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was as a Rhodes scholar. From 1983 until 1986 he taught constitutional and public international law as a junior lecturer at Würzburg University, where he received his Doctorate in international law in 1985.
He started his diplomatic career in the Legal Department of the German Foreign Office, then headed the Cultural and Press Section of the Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, from 1988 - 1990. During the negotiations on the external aspects of German unification (the so-called "2+4-Negotiations"), he acted as legal advisor and chaired the legal committee in the final round. He then served as Executive Assistant to the State Secretary of the Foreign Office from 1991 till 1993. In 1993 he was posted to Washington DC as Counsellor for Politico-Military Affairs before moving on to Tokyo in 1997. After one year as the Embassy's Deputy Head of the Economic Section he became Head of its Political Department (1998-2001).
He is married to Dr. med. Gabriele Ney. They have two sons. Hobbies include tennis and playing chambre music - which has been particularly close to his heart ever since he served as co-principle flautist in the First German Airforce Band during his military service (1974-1976).