Steering Committee

The Steering Committee is responsible for advising on program policy in accordance with the aims of the Stichting, as stated in the statutes. Steering Committee members also participate in project activities. This ensures that programme policy responds directly to local needs and concerns. For example, in response to specific requests made by partner parliaments and CSOs in Southeastern Europe, the EWPPP began to focus in recent years on parliamentary-civil society relations in Southeastern Europe, while continuing to take a unique parliamentary approach to these issues.

Chairman

Raynell Andreychuk

Member of the Upper House of the Parliament of Canada

Mrs. Andreychuk was born on August 14, 1944 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She studied law at the University of Saskatchewan (B.A. 1966; Bachelor of Laws 1967); University of Regina - Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree (Honoris Causa, 1993). Mrs. Andreychuk has served as a lawyer, former Judge and former Ambassador. She has been a Senator since 1993, representing the Conservative Party of Canada. She is a current Member of the following Senate committee(s): Anti-terrorism Act (Special), Foreign Affairs, Human Rights (Chair), Legal and Constitutional Affairs, and Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. Her special interests include volunteer work, international law and human rights.

Malcolm Bruce

Member of the House of Commons, United Kingdom

Malcolm Bruce was born in 1944 and graduated in Economics and Political Science at St. Andrew's University with Honours. Before entering politics as a full-time MP in 1983, his employment included Journalism, Commerce and Local Government. From 1988 -'92 Malcolm Bruce was leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and is currently their President. From 1994-'99 Mr. Bruce gained a national reputation as the Party's Treasury Spokesman and from 1999 he served in a senior party role as the Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party. He was a Member of the Committee on Standards and Privileges and part of the UK delegation to the Assembly of the Council of Europe in the last Parliament.

Blendi Klosi

Member of Parliament, Albania

Blendi Klosi was born in Tirana, Albania on 17 January 1971. He studied Electronic Engineering at the University of Tirana. Before becoming a full-time MP in 2001, Mr. Klosi worked in various capacities in the Public Administration Department in the Office of the Prime Minister of Albania.During his tenure as a Member of the Albanian Parliament, Mr. Klosi has served as Minister of State for Reforms as well as Anti-corruption and Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports. Currently carrying out his second mandate as a MP, Mr. Klosi is also Secretary of the Party for Human Resources and a member of the Chairmanship of the Socialist Party of Albania.

Vladimir N. Podoprigora

Chairman of the Assembly of Parliamentarians,

Vice-Governor of the Novgorod Region,

fmr. Member of the Russian Duma, The Russian Federation

Born in 1954, Vladimir Podoprigora graduated from the Izhevsk Mechanical Institute (Udmurtia) and continued his education at the Higher Commercial School of the Academy of National Economy (Moscow) and the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. Vladimir Podoprigora was a Member of Parliament of the Russian Federation from 1990-93. From 1994-96 he was a Deputy of the Council of the Federation. During this period, he served as a chairman of the committee on international affairs. He has been a member of Russian parliamentary delegations to the Interparliamentary Union, the Assembly of the Council of Europe and to the United Nations in New York. Vladimir Podoprigora is chairman of the Assembly of Parliamentarians (Moscow) and currently holds the position of Vice-Governor of the Novgorod region.

Zoran Sapuric

Member of Parliament, Macedonia

Zoran Sapuric, born in 1958, received his Masters in Law from the University St. "Kiril and Metodij" in Skopje. Mr. Sapuric has served as a law clerk; senior expert consultant in the Constitutional Court of Macedonia; legal advisor for various companies. He also served as Mayor of the "Kisela Voda" in Skopje; Deputy General Manager of Public Enterprise in Skopje. He was elected Member of the Macedonian Parliament in 1994 and again in 2001. Mr. Sapuric currently serves as Chairman of the Commisssion on the Political System and Relations Among Ethnic Communities, Deputy Chairman of the Law Committee, and Member of the Committee for European Integration. Mr. Sapuric is currently working on his PhD on "Decentralization in the Republic of Macedoina".

David Skaggs

Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education,

Former Executive Director of the Democracy and Citizenship Program at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C.,

Former Member of Congress, United States

David Skaggs is Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education. Previous to this position, he was Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, Council to the law firm Hogan & Hartson and Adjunct professor at the University of Colorado. Skaggs served as a member of the United States Congress until January 1999, having represented a Colorado district for 12 years. He previously served 6 years in the Colorado General Assembly. During his time in Congress, Skaggs was a leader in efforts to improve the U.S. House of Representatives and founded the House Bipartisan Retreats. He has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an LL.B. from Yale Law School.

József Szájer

Member of the European Parliament, Hungary

Mr. Szájer, born in Sopron, acquired a doctorate degree at the Law Faculty of the Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest in 1986, following which he received a one-year scholarship for Oxford University and Michigan Law School. He is one of the founding members of FIDESZ. In 1990 he was elected by the Sopron region as a member of the National Parliament. He is a member of the Parliament's Constitutional Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee. Within FIDESZ, he heads the foreign affairs specialists. As from 1998, he is the chairman of the Magyar Polgár Párt's fraction in the Hungarian Parliament.

Vojkan Tomic

Member of Parliament, Serbia

Born on 29 May 1972, Vojkan Tomic graduated from the University of Belgrade with a degree in Law. Mr. Tomic was first elected as an MP in the Serbian Parliament in 2000 as a member of the DOS opposition coalition. In 2003 he won a second term, representing the Democratic Party of Serbia. Prior to becoming a member of the Serbian Parliament, Mr.Tomic worked for the daily newspaper Demokratija and the publishing agency Paideia. He was also one of the founders of the "Student Protest" organized in opposition to the Milosevic regime in 1996-97. Mr. Tomic is also serving as a member of Chairmanship of the Democratic Party of Serbia.