Miroslav Lajčák of Slovakia President of Seventy-second General Assembly

On 31 May 2017, the United Nations General Assembly elected Miroslav Lajčák of Slovakia President of its seventy-second session, which runs from September 2017 to September 2018 (Press Release GA/11915).

At the time of his election, Mr. Lajčák was Slovakia’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs, a position he had held since April 2012.  From April 2012 to March 2016, he was the country’s Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr. Lajčák has represented both Slovakia and the international community in Brussels as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.  Having joined the foreign service of the then Czechoslovakia in 1988, he was posted to Moscow from 1991 to 1993, initially as an assistant to the Ambassador, and from 1993, to the newly formed Embassy of Slovakia, where he held the same position.  Upon his return to Slovakia in 1993, Mr. Lajčák was appointed Director of the Foreign Minister’s Cabinet at the newly established Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1994, Mr. Lajčák was appointed Ambassador to Japan, and from 1999 to 2001, he served as Executive Assistant to Eduard Kukan, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans.  Following his tenure as Slovakia’s Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Lajčák served as Political Director at the Foreign Ministry in Bratislava from 2005 to 2007.

Taking part in the mediation of the post-conflict crises in the Western Balkans, Mr. Lajčák negotiated, organized and supervised the referendum on Montenegro’s independence in 2006, on behalf of Javier Solana, European Union High Representative for Common and Security Policy.  In 2007, he was appointed High Representative of the International Community and European Union Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  From 2009 to July 2010, he was Slovakia’s Foreign Minister.

From 2010 to 2012, Mr. Lajčák was the Managing Director for Europe and Central Asia of the European External Action Service.  In addition, he served as the European Union’s Chief Negotiator for the Association Agreements of the European Union with Ukraine and Moldova, as well as the Representative of the European Union for the “5+2 Talks” on the Transnistrian Settlement Process.

A graduate of the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, Mr. Lajčák holds a law degree from Comenius University in Bratislava.

He is married and has two daughters.