<strong><em><u><a href="http://www.thoughtforaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/head-of-forum.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3299" src="http://www.thoughtforaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/head-of-forum.png" alt="head of forum" width="865" height="281" /></a></u></em></strong>

&nbsp;

<strong><em><u>About the Wrocław Global Forum</u></em></strong>

The Wrocław Global Forum is the leading transatlantic conference in Poland, bringing together outstanding policy and business entrepreneurs for discussions focused on the core transatlantic values of democracy, prosperity, and security. The Forum highlights Central Europe’s successful economic and political transition, its strong ties with Germany and other leading European countries, and its growing influence within the transatlantic partnership and on the global stage. Convening more than 400 leaders from government, the corporate world, media, and civil society, the Forum is a key distributor of ideas and influence both regionally and around the world.

<strong><em><u>Organizers:</u></em></strong> Atlantic Council, The Polish Institute of International Affairs and Wroclaw meeting place.

<strong><em><u>Distinguish Guest speakers of the Panel “Vision of the future- Will Europe hold together”:<a href="http://www.thoughtforaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WGF2015_day2_226.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3301" src="http://www.thoughtforaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WGF2015_day2_226.jpg" alt="WGF2015_day2_226" width="1600" height="1008" /></a></u></em></strong>
<ul>
	<li><strong>Rafal Dutkiewicz, </strong><em>Major of Wroclaw</em></li>
</ul>
Mr. Rafał Dutkiewicz is the current mayor of Wrocław, Poland. He graduated from the Mathematics Faculty at Wrocław’s University of Technology in 1982. In 1986, he obtained a PhD in Mathematical Logic at the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1991 he received a scholarship to Freiberg University in Germany. In 2002, he was elected Mayor of Wrocław and was re-elected with an 85 percent majority in 2006. In 2010, Dutkiewicz was elected as the mayor of Wrocław for the third term. He was voted the best mayor in Poland in Newsweek rankings in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. Academia Europea, a prestigious scientific organization which associates 2,500 thousand professors, including 50 Nobel Prize winners, awarded Dutkiewicz with honorary membership in 2011. In 2013, Dutkiewicz was awarded the Legion of Honor - the highest medal awarded by the French State to outstanding personalities.

&nbsp;
<ul>
	<li><strong>Federick Kempe, </strong><em>President and CEO, Atlantic Council</em></li>
</ul>
Frederick Kempe has been President and CEO of the Atlantic Council since December 2006. Under his leadership, the Council has achieved significant growth while considerably expanding its staff, work, and influence in areas that include international security, business and economics, energy and environment, and global issues of transatlantic interest ranging from Asia to Africa. Mr. Kempe came to the Council from a long and prominent career at the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, where he won national and international recognition while serving in numerous senior editorial and reportorial capacities. Mr. Kempe left the Journal following more than a quarter century of distinguished work. His last position with the paper was in New York, where he served as Assistant Managing Editor, International, and "Thinking Global" columnist. Prior to that, he was for seven years the longest ever serving editor and associate publisher of the Wall Street Journal Europe, simultaneously functioning as European editor for the Global Wall Street Journal from 2002 to 2005. He is the author of four books, including the national bestseller <em>BERLIN 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth</em>, and is a regular commentator on television and radio both in Europe and the United States.

&nbsp;
<ul>
	<li><strong>Stephen Booth, </strong><em>Co- Director, Open Europe </em></li>
</ul>
Stephen is Co-Director at Open Europe. While at Open Europe he has written on EU regulation, justice and home affairs and EU aid policy. Stephen holds an undergraduate degree in political science and was awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for his master's degree in European studies from the University of Sussex. Stephen's professional interests include democracy and transparency in the EU, the interaction between domestic and EU law and European cooperation in crime and policing. He is half Dutch.

<strong> </strong>
<ul>
	<li><strong>Bruno Maçães, </strong><em>State Secretary for European Affairs, Government of Portugal</em></li>
</ul>
Bruno Maçães has served as the Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs since July 2013. Before then, between June 2011 and March 2013, Maçães was political adviser to the Prime Minister of Portugal. Between 2006 and 2007, Maçães was a Professor at the University of Yonsei in South Korea, where he taught International Political Economy. He then worked at the American Enterprise Institute in 2008. From 2008 to 2011, Maçães helped launch a new international university in Europe, the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin. The first students to attend the new institution graduated in 2011. He received his Law degree from the University of Lisbon in 1997 and his Ph.D in Political Science from Harvard University. His latest publications discuss political economy, structural reforms and the future of the euro area

<strong> </strong>
<ul>
	<li><strong>Elena Panaritis, </strong><em>Chief Economic Advisor of the Greek Minister of Finance</em></li>
</ul>
<strong> </strong>Elena Panaritis is an institutional economist, and policy innovator. Until recently, she served as a special advisor to the Greek Prime Minister and as a Member of Parliament of Greece. In more than a decade as an economist at the World Bank, Elena spearheaded several institutional/structural reforms including property rights reform in Peru that received International Best Practice and Innovation awards (in total about 15 million people benefited while the return has been over a 150 multiple). Elena’s reform methods have revolutionized and forever changed the way people and policymakers think about them, specifically related to structural reforms. As an economist, she pioneered social entrepreneurship. She is renowned for her success in transforming informal markets into vibrant, growing formal economic and social entities. Her book Prosperity Unbound: Building Property Markets with Trust (Palgrave Macmillan) recounts her experience and expands on her methodology- “Reality Check Analysis”, which is considered one of the best practical applications of institutional economics to property rights issues. She is the founder of Panel Group, a triple-bottom-line business (social enterprise) that focuses in distressed cities and markets with high level of informality, transforming the wealth base of poor property holders, to proud middle class owners. Elena Panaritis has taught economic development, housing finance and property markets reform at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, INSEAD, and the Johns Hopkins University- School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

&nbsp;
<ul>
	<li><strong>Rodoslav </strong><strong>Procházka</strong>, <em>Leader Siet’ Party</em></li>
</ul>
Radoslav Procházka is a Slovak lawyer, politician and leader of the political party Sieť. He was candidate in the 2014 Slovak presidential election, running as an independent. From 2001 until 2004 he worked as an adviser and a consultant at the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic, at the same time he served as a legal counsel to the Slovak delegation to the European Commission. When Slovakia joined the European Union in 2004, he became the first representative of the country before the he served as Slovakia's first representative to the European Court of Justice until 2006. In 2010, he was first elected to the Slovak parliament, the National Council of Slovakia. After an unsuccessful presidential run in 2014, Procházka founded a new political party Sieť (meaning “network” in Slovak). He is married with two children.

&nbsp;
<ul>
	<li><strong>Borys Tarasyuk, </strong><em>Member, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine</em></li>
</ul>
Borys Tarasyuk is a Ukrainian politician who twice served as theMinister for Foreign Affairs<span style="color: #000000;"> of Ukraine and is now an <a style="color: #000000;" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_parliament">MP</a>. Tarasyuk studied international relations and international law at National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, and graduated in 1975. Besides Ukrainian, he is fluent in English, French and Russian. As of 2012, Tarasyuk is a sitting member of the International Honorary Council of the European Academy of Diplomacy. In 1995 – 1998 he was ambassador in Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Ukraine representative in Nato. Borys Tarasyuk is the founder of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation (<em>IEAC</em>), a political action committee established to campaign for Nato- and European Union memberships in Ukraine. He has received different academic awards as: 2005 State Order "For Merits", I Grade, (2002) Doctor Honoris Causa of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, (1999) State Order "For M</span>erits", II Grade, (1996) State Order "For Merits", III Grade, (1992) Diplomatic Rank of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. Borys Tarasyuk has been decorated with highest state awards of Argentina, Brazil, France, Lithuania, Portugal, Sweden and Venezuela.

&nbsp;
<ul>
	<li><strong>Sebastian Plociennik, </strong><em>Head of European Union Programme, Polish Institute of International Affairs    </em></li>
</ul>
Sebastian Płóciennik is the coordinator of the European Union (EU) program at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) in Warsaw. Previously Płóciennik served as a research fellow at the Wroclaw University and the Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies in Wroclaw. His research focuses on the economic system of Germany and the European integration. He has authored several dozen publications, among them monographs on the evolution of the German capitalism after the Agenda 2010 reforms and the core-Europe concepts in the German European policy after 1949. He is a member of the Permanent Council of the Polish-German Forum by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has taught as a visiting professor at universities in South Africa, Canada, India and Germany. Płóciennik holds a doctoral degree in economics.

<strong> </strong>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<strong> </strong>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;