Short presentation of the EU-Balkan Youth Forum speakers
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Fabiana Dadone has been the Italian Minister for Youth Policies since 13 February 2021, and former Minister for Public Administration in the Giuseppe Conte II Government. She is a member of the Chamber of Deputies at her second legislature. During her parliamentary experience she has been group leader of the 5-star Movement and President of the Committee for Legislation of the Chamber of Deputies.
Adrienn Kiraly is Policy Officer – Western Balkans Strategy at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR)
Elina Hakonen-Medding is Deputy Head of Unit at the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) of the European Commission.
Nicola Verola
Deputy Director General for Europe and Central Director for European Integration – Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was the former Secretary of the Interministerial Committee for EU Affairs (CIAE) between 2015 and 2018, former Head of Cabinet of the Italian State Secretary for European Affairs between 2014 and 2018, former First Counselor for Political Affairs at the Italian embassy in Washington between 2011 and 2014.
Piero Fassino is an Italian politician and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies since 2020. He was the Mayor of Turin between 2011 and 2016. Fassino has also served as a member of the Italian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1994 to 1996, from 2006 to 2011, and since 2018; in the Assembly, he serves on the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (since 2018); the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy (since 2018); and the Sub-Committee on the Middle East and the Arab World (since 2019). He also serves as the Assembly’s co-rapporteur on Serbia (alongside Ian Liddell-Grainger) and Libya. He has been a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2011, and again since 2018. He served as the Italian Minister of Foreign Trade from 1998 to 2000 and Minister of Justice from 2000 to 2001.
Andrea Cascone is the Adriatic and Balkans Director at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ettore Sequi is an Italian diplomat. After serving as head of the cabinet for the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2019, he was appointed Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 12 May 2021. From 2015 to 2019, he was the Italian Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. Previously, he was Consul in Tehran, then counsellor at the Italian Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, deputy head of mission in Tirana and Ambassador of Italy in Kabul. He was then appointed as Special Envoy of the European Union for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also went back to Tirana as Head of the EU Delegation in Albania. In 2014 he was the head of the cabinet of Ministers Federica Mogherini and then Paolo Gentiloni.
Majlinda Bregu has been the Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) since 1 January 2019. She served as Minister of European Integration and Government Spokeswoman from 2007 to 2013 in the Berisha cabinet, and was a member of the Albanian Parliament from 2005 until 2017 representing the County of Tirana. During her experience as a parliamentarian, she also served as Chairperson of the Committee for European Integration of the Albanian Parliament from 2013 to 2017.
Giovanni Castellaneta has been the Secretary General of the Adriatic and Ionian Initiative since 2017. He has been Ambassador of Italy to the United States of America, to Australia and to Iran. From 2001 until 2005, he was Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Ministers Giuliano Amato and subsequently Silvio Berlusconi, as well as their Personal Representative for the G8 and G20 Summits. During Castellaneta’s diplomatic career, he held important positions, especially in the Italian Embassies in Somalia, France, Portugal and in the United Nations Offices in Genève. In Rome, he also served as Foreign Policy Advisor to the Treasury Minister and then Spokesman of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director of the Office for International Activities of the Italian Regions, Head of the Office of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Government Coordinator for the Reconstruction Program in Albania.
Albert Hani is the Secretary General of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO). He is a civil society activist with longstanding experience in managing and leading peace-building and youth projects for a number of international organizations (OSCE, forumZFD). He teaches multicultural communication at the State University of Tetovo, North Macedonia.
Roberto Antonione is an Italian politician, and Secretary General of the Central European Initiative (CEI). A former member of the Italian parliament, he was President of the Autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia from 1998 to 2001 and Undersecretary of State at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2001 to 2006.
Marina Lalović is a Serbian journalist based in Rome. She currently hosts Radio3Mondo for RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana), a radio show dedicated to news reports from around the world.
Dubravka Šuica is a Croatian politician who has been Vice-President of the European Commission for Democracy and Demography since 2019. She previously served as a member of the European Parliament from 2013 to 2019. She also served two consecutive terms as mayor of Dubrovnik between 2001 and 2009, the first female mayor of the city and one of the first female mayors in modern Croatia. She has been a member of the Croatian Parliament for three terms, from 2001 to 2011. Since 2004, she has been elected five times in a row as Vice-President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. In October 2012, she was elected Vice-President of the EPP Women’s association and in June 2019 Vice-President of the EPP’s EU parliament group.
Luigi Di Maio is an Italian politician serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 5 September 2019. He previously served as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Economic Development, Labour and Social Policies from 2018 to 2019, and as Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies in the XVII legislature. From September 2017 to January 2020, he was the leader of the Five Star Movement.
