János Martonyi
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Place and date of birth
Kolozsvár (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania), 1944
Education
Doctorate (“summa cum laude”) in law and public administration in 1967; PhD in law and public administration in 1975.
Professional experience
He worked as a corporate lawyer from 1969 and as a commerce secretary in Brussels from 1979. He has lectured at ELTE University’s Faculty of Law and Public Administration in Budapest since 1987, and at the University of Szeged, where he was the head of the Institute for International Trade Law and Head of Department from 1997. He was a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, and Natolin (Warsaw), Poland, between 1995 and 1998, and at the Central European University in Budapest in 1996. From 2002 until July 2009, he was a full-time professor and managing partner in the law firm Martonyi és Kajtár Baker & McKenzie, Budapest.
He is the author of numerous articles and essays in various languages in the field of international trade law, competition policy and competition law, European integration and community (European) law, global regulations, cooperation in Central Europe and international politics.
Political career
He was head of department, and then senior head of department at the Foreign Trade and Trade ministries from 1984. In 1989-1990 he was government commissioner in charge of privatization. In 1990-91, he served as State Secretary in the Ministry of International Economic Relations and from 1991 to 1994, as State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1998 to 2002, he was Foreign Minister in the centre-right government of Hungary. As an international arbitrator, he is a member of the Board of the Permanent Arbitration Court of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry..
He is actively involved in politics as the President of the Free Europe Centre for European Integration of the Fidesz Hungarian Civic Union, a member of the Executive Board of the Centre for European Studies, a foundation of the European People's Party based in Brussels, a member of the Batthyány Society of Professors and a member of the advisory board of the weekly Heti Válasz. He is a permanent guest of the Fidesz presidium, a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and Chairman of the Nézőpont Institute, Budapest.
Other
Languages spoken: English, French and German.
He is married with two adult children and four grandchildren.