Pierre Mirel (1946) PhD in Public Law. He served at the French embassies in Cairo (1971-74) and in Saigon (1974-76), then at the International Institute for Public Administration, Paris (1977-81).

He joined the European commission in 1981, where he spent a large part of his career on EU enlargement: setting up the PHARE assistance programme; Head of relations with Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania; Director for the accession negotiations with Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia, then for Croatia and Turkey. In 2006, he took over the relations with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, until he retired end 2013.

Lecturer at Sciences Politiques-Paris since 2010, he has published “L’Egypte des Ruptures” (1982) and a chapter on “the EU enlargement and neighbourhood policies” in Jacques Rupnik’s book “Géopolitique de la Démocratisation, l’Europe et ses voisinages” (Presses de Sciences Politiques-Paris, novembre 2014).