The Peace Implementation Council Steering Board has decided to appoint Ambassador Miroslav Lajčák as the next High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Office of the High Representative (OHR) will inform the Security Council of the United Nations and the Council of the European Union of this appointment.
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Ambassador Lajčák will be succeeding the current High Representative, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, whose mandate expires on 30 June.
Ambassador Miroslav Lajčák is currently the Director-General for Political Affairs in the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is a 44-year-old career diplomat with extensive experience in Southeastern Europe best known for his role as mediator and personal representative of the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, in Montenegro last year in which capacity he oversaw the Montenegrin referendum.
High-resolution photos of Ambassador Lajčák can be downloaded from the OHR web site at the following addresseshttps://www.ohr.int/ohr-info/photos/images/lajcak1.jpg and https://www.ohr.int/ohr-info/photos/images/lajcak2.jpg.
Broadcast-quality television footage of Ambassador Lajčák can be downloaded from the OHR web site from the following address:https://www.ohr.int/audio-video/video/lajcak.mpg.
Ambassador Lajčák’s Biography
High Representative-designate Miroslav Lajčák is currently the Director-General for Political Affairs in the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has extensive experience in Southeastern Europe where he is best known for his role as mediator and personal representative of the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, in Montenegro last year in which capacity he oversaw the Montenegrin referendum.
Between 2001 and 2005, Ambassador Lajčák was based in Belgrade as Slovakia’s Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro), Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
From 1998 to 2001, he was chef de cabinet of Slovakia’s then Foreign Minister, Eduard Kukan. And between 1999 and 2001, concurrently, he was Special Assistant to Minister Kukan in his capacity as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Balkans.
Ambassador Lajčák was Slovakia’s Ambassador in Japan between 1994 and 1998. And between 1993 and 1994, he was chef de cabinet of Slovakia’s then Foreign Minister and later Prime Minister, Jozef Moravčík.
Between 1991 and 1993, Ambassador Lajčák was posted to Moscow where he worked initially in the Embassy of Czechoslovakia and then, from 1 January 1993, in the Embassy of Slovakia after the peaceful split of Czechoslovakia.
Ambassador Lajčák joined Czechoslovakia’s Foreign Ministry in 1988.
Ambassador Lajčák is a law graduate from the Commenius University in Bratislava. He studied international relations at the State Institute of International Relations in Moscow and is also a graduate of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Ambassador Lajčák is fluent in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Bulgarian, English, German and Russian.
Ambassador Lajčák is married with two daughters. He was born on 20 March 1963 in Poprad, Slovakia.