Patrick COX

Patrick Cox is an experienced politician who was the general secretary of the Progressive Democrats (1986-1989), elected three times to the European Parliament for the constituency of Munster (1989-2004), twice to the presidency of its Liberal Democrat Group (1998-2002) and once to Dáil Éireann, the Irish Parliament (1992-1994). He was elected to the Presidency of the European Parliament for the period January 2002- June 2004 prioritising EU enlargement during his term of office. After leaving parliament he was twice elected to the presidency of the European Movement International (2005-2011).
Today he is engaged in a diverse portfolio of pro bono activities serving on several boards of charitable foundations in the cultural and ageing fields. He is EU coordinator of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor, a major multi-modal Trans EU transport programme involving eight states He is a member of the Supervisory Board of Michelin, France; serves on the European Advisory Council of Liberty Global International, Netherlands, and is Chairman of the KPMG Public Interest Committee, Ireland. He is President of Alliance Française, Dublin and President of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, Lausanne.
In the context of EU-Ukraine relations, for eighteen months in 2012-2013 he served together with the former President of Poland, Alexander Kwaśniewski, as a special European Parliament envoy to Ukraine. He is a member of the YES Supervisory Board. For the past year he has led a needs assessment mission on parliamentary reform jointly on behalf of the European Parliament and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. He has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates, national honours by eight member states of the EU, the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen, Germany and has been recognised during his parliamentary service variously as MEP of the Year, Campaigner of the Year, and Irish European of the year and was the first recipient of the AmCham EU Transatlantic Business award.
Patrick Cox is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. He has worked as an academic with the Institute of Public Administration, Dublin, and the National Institute for Higher Education - the University of Limerick and as a current affairs broadcaster with RTE, Irish television.