Minister of Foreign Affairs

Jan Kavan

     The son of a Czechoslovak diplomat and an Englishwoman, Mr.Kavan holds both Czech and U.K. citizenship. In the 1960s he was one of the protagonists of the radical students' movement and a representative of the Union of Students. Expelled from university studies for political reasons, he emigrated to Britain in 1969. In 1979 he was stripped of his Czechoslovak citizenship and prosecuted for alleged damage to Czechoslovakia's interests abroad. While in exile, Mr.Kavan took up a course of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, from which he graduated in 1974, and politics and history at St.Anthony's College, Oxford, and the University of Reading. He then worked as a political writer, assistant editor, and, from 1985 to 1990, as head of the Czechoslovak section of the journal East European Reporter, and Vice-President of the UK-based East European Cultural Foundation. He also served as director of the Palach Press news agency between 1974 and 1990. After his return from exile, Mr.Kavan became a member of the Civic Forum's Co-ordination Centre Council, member of the Helsinki Civic Council Presidium, Secretary of the Peace Groups Information Centre, and an MP in the Federal Assembly where he worked on the Foreign Committee from 1990 to 1992. In 1992 and 1993 he lectured at  Adelphi University, New York, and Amherst College, Massachusetts in the United States. In 1996 he was elected Senator for the CSSD. 

     Mr.Kavan joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1967 only to be expelled from it that same year. He was a member of the British Labour Party from 1982 to 1990; since 1993, he has been a member of the CSSD Czech Social Democratic Party. He is Vice-Chairman of the Socialist International's regional committee for Central and Eastern Europe.