Jiří Schneider

Visegrad Insight Senior Fellow. A former diplomat, in May 2021 was elected Synodal Curator (Lay Moderator) of The Evangelical Church of The Czech Brethren. Following the democratic changes in 1989, he was elected to the Czechoslovak Parliament in 1990 and 1992. After the split of Czechoslovakia, he joined the Foreign Ministry as the head of policy planning. He also served as the Czech Ambassador to Israel (1995-1998) and most prominently as the First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic (2010-2014). He took direct part in the development of think-tanks and NGO platforms as a Program Director at the Prague Security Studies Institute (2005-2010) and as the Executive Director of Aspen Institute Central Europe (2016-2020).