Andrew Duff is a Liberal Democrat politician and a Member of the European Parliament for the East of England region of the UK. Since October 2008 Andrew Duff is President of the UEF. He is also co-chairs the Federalist Intergroup in the European Parliament and the Spinelli Group of MEPs. (British, born in 1950)

Vice-Presidents

Philipp Agathonos is a diplomat, serving since 2004 at the Permanent Representation of Austria to the EU. He is UEF Vice-President since 2001, member of the UEF Bureau since 1997 and Vice-President of EFBÖ (UEF Austria) since 1993. (Austrian, born in 1965)

Andrey Kovatchev is a Bulgarian politician, member of the European Parliament and Head of the Bulgarian delegation to the EPP. He is chairman of the Union of European Federalists in Bulgaria and Vice-president of the UEF. In the EP he is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Security and Defense, Committee on Regional Development. (Bulgarian, born in 1967)



Guido Montani is a full time professor of International Political Economy at the University of Pavia (I). In 1970 he was elected President of the Jeunes du MFE, the supranational organisation of the federalists during the sixties, until 1972, when in the Luxembourg’s Congress the present JEF was founded. As the responsible for the youth policy in the MFE-Italy, he founded the first federalist seminar in Ventotene in 1982 and after Spinelli’s death, the Altiero Spinelli Institute for Federalist Studies in 1987. In 1993 he was elected Secretary-General of the MFE and from 2005 to 2009 he was President of the MFE. Since 2008 he is a Vice-President of the UEF. (Italian, born in 1943)



Heinz-Wilhelm Schaumann is a senior lecturer for International and European Studies. Between 1995 and 1998 he was the President of JEF Germany. From 1995 to 1998 and since 2003 he is a member of the executive bureau of the German UEF memberorganisation Europa-Union Deutschland (EUD) and is the responsible editor of the newspaper "Europa Aktiv". He is a member of the expert network TEAM EUROPE of the European Commission. (German, born in 1970)

Bureau Members

Till Burckhardt has been Treasurer of the Young European Federalists (JEF-Europe) since 2007. He received a Masters degree in Economics (European and Financial Governance) from Sciences Po Paris in 2007 and is currently a PhD student and teaching assistant in economics and language policy at the University of Geneva. (Swiss/Italian, born in 1983)



Jean-Guy Giraud is the President of UEF France since 2009. He has been Secretary-General of EU Court of Justice, Secretary-General of EU Ombudsman, Director in the European Parliament and head of the EP Institutional Committee Secretariat. From 2001-2009 he was the Director of the European Parliament Bureau in France. (French, born in 1944)



Francesco Ferrero was Secretary General of JEF Italy from 2001 to 2005 and Deputy Secretary General of UEF Italy from 2005 to 2009. Since 2009 he has been a member of the UEF Bureau. He has also been Assistant to the Editor of The Federalist Debate magazine since 1999. Apart from being a federalist, Francesco is the Technology Transfer manager in a Research Institute on Information and Communication Technologies based in Torino, Italy. He was responsible for designing the website of UEF's European Referendum Campaign in 2007 and the brand new website of UEF Italy. (Italian, born in 1975)



Andrea Kdolsky was an anesthesiologist and intensive care specialist working as an Assistant Medical Director at the University Hospital of Vienna until 2002. She became Hospital Manager and Health Economist working as CEO of an Austrian hospital organisation until end of 2006. She has been Federal Minister of Health, Youth and Family of the Republic of Austria in 2007 and 2008. Currently she is Managing Director Healthcare Services of PwC Österreich. Board member of the JEF Austria since 2009. (Austrian, born in 1962)



Bettina Kümmerle is a banking instructor. From 1989-2002 she was chair of local JEF section Heilbronn, section Baden-Württemberg, last position hold was district treasurer. Since 1990 she is a member of Europa-Union Deutschland (EUD), local section Baden-Württemberg, where she is the local treasurer of Heilbronn’s section. In 2009 she became an administrative officer of Baden-Württemberg. Since 2011 she is the executive district manager of Baden-Württemberg. (German, born in 1967)



Nikos Lampropoulos is in the federalists' movement for more than a decade now. Being active in all national levels of JEF and UEF in Greece, he was Vice President of JEF Europe in 2003-2005 and in the Executive Bureau  of UEF since 2008. Since 2001, he is running Euractiv Greece working also for EU funded projects. Currently living in Athens. (Greek, born in 1974)



Paolo Vacca, Italian, but currently living in The Netherlands, joined the European Federalist Movement (MFE) in Milano (I) in 1990. Since then Paolo has been active at all levels of the federalist movement, including being President of the Young European Federalists (JEF) in Italy in 1995-1997 and at European level in 1999-2001, Member of the Bureau of UEF in 2001-2008 and Member of the Board of the Association for a European Federal Core since 2007.  He has organized and contributed to countless conferences, seminars and grass-root campaigns and actions across Europe. Professionally, Paolo works in the European legal department of a Middle-Eastern chemical multinational where he focusses on corporate finance and M&A and leads a commercial law team. (Italian, born in 1969)



Catherine Vieilledent has been an academic in American literature for ten years, changed over to the French then European administration (budget issues). She is involved in associations since 1993, passionate about the democratic debate, European policies and multilingualism. She holds a believe that the permanence of the European civil service is a key to the furthering of the European project. She has been Secretary to the Brussels section of Group Europe since 2000 and Secretary-General of the group since 2010. (French, born in 1956)



Elina Viilup is a Research Fellow at CIDOB, in Barcelona. She has worked as an adviser for  European Parliament's political and administrative management bodies, as well as a special adviser of the Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, where her main dossiers included external aspects of energy policy, the Eastern Dimension of the Union's external policies, including EU's bilateral relations with its Eastern Partners and the Russian Federation, the Eastern Partnership, the Black Sea Synergy, enlargement to South East Europe,  and parliamentary cooperation with multilateral parliamentary assemblies (OSCE PA, PABSEC). She started her career as a consultant and adviser in the area of EU communication policy and enlargement issues at the European Commission Delegation in Tallinn, Estonia. She holds a Master's of Advanced European Studies from the University of Basel and a post-graduate Diploma of International Relations and European Integration from the Estonian School of Diplomacy. (Estonian, born in 1976)



Nikola Zivkovic holds Diploma in Political Sciences and International Relations from the University of Belgrade and an MA in European Studies he earned at the Centre for European Integration Studies of the University of Bonn. He worked as assistant and project coordinator in the Centre for European Integration in Belgrade. He has participated in and organized numerous seminars and conferences in the area of democracy building, Euro-Atlantic integration, the Western Balkans regional cooperation and international relations in Serbia and abroad. He is lecturer, author and co-author of articles and papers in area such as law of the European Union, CFSP and the Western Balkans countries’ process of EU accession. Since May 2009 he is a coordinator of the Centre for Publishing of UEF Serbia and Secretary International since September 2009. He is a Konrad-Adenauer Foundation fellow and will start his PhD studies in the area of Foreign Policy in Germany in 2011. (Serbian, born in 1982)





Pauline Gessant (ex-officio member) is President of the Young European Federalists (JEF-Europe). She was born in France and discovered herself as European during a Erasmus year in the Netherlands. She studied political sciences and has a master in European projects at local level. Since 2003 she has been involved in the work of JEF at all levels of the organisation: President of a local section in Nantes, President and International Officer of JEF-France and finally at the European level as FC member and Vice-President. She was also Editor-in-chief of Thenewfederalist.eu during one year and Secretary General of European Movement -France in 2009-2010. When she is not dedicating her time to JEF, Pauline is in charge of European cooperation for a local authority in the North of France. (French)