Diplomat and historian: currently Director of the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. After 1990, he served as Austrian Consul General in Cracow, Director of the Austrian Cultural Institute London, Director General for Foreign Cultural Policy at the Ministry for European and International Affairs of Austria, Austrian Ambassador to the UK and Austrian Ambassador to the Russian Federation. He is deputy chairman of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe and member of the governing board of the Austrian Research Association. PhD University of Vienna, Dr. h.c. of the Drohobych University and of the Babeș-Bolyai University. He published numerous books and articles on Austrian and European history of the 19th and 20th centuries.