Prof. Dr. Klemens H. Fischer, Minister plenipotentiary

AIES Vice-President International Relations and Research

Born in 1964, Dr. Klemens H. Fischer is Minister plenipotentiary and Head of Department at the  Permanent Representation of Austria to the European Union.

He is an expert for EU negotiations as he was member of the negotiation team for the Austrian EU accession in 1995, and is – since 2000 – a regular member of the Austrian negotiation teams for Intergovernmental Conference. Since 2005, he is the Austrian focal point for the EU High Level Governance Process and, in 2011, took over the Chair of the Steering Group of the EU High Level Governance Process.

Klemens H. Fischer has studied Law and Management at the Johannes-Kepler-University Linz/Austria, obtained his PhD (doctorate) degree in International Law in July 1989, and qualified as university lecturer in June 2006 with a venia legendi for International Relations at the University of Siegen/Germany. In 2010, he qualified as university lecturer with the same venia legendi at the University of Cologne/Germany. In July 2016 he was appointed Professor. His main fields of research are (a) International Relations, in particular the relations between (i) the European Union and East Asia with a special focus on Japan, (ii) the EU and the USA, (b) the development of European and International Law, and (c) International Security Policy.

He conducts seminars on EU relations and Foreign Affairs as Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for International and Foreign Politics at the University of Cologne. As guest lecturer at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT/Germany), and at the Institute for Management and Technological Training (POTHO/Finland), he has taught many international executive managers in the fields of Business Government Relations and EU Lobbying issues as well as EU Foreign and Security Policy.

As member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London/United Kingdom), Member of the Board and Vice-President for International Relations and Research at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy, and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Negotiation Academy Potsdam, he appears regularly on panel discussions on international relations issues.

He published numerous books and articles on various issues in the field of European and International Law and International Relations. Inter alia, he published the commentaries on the Treaty of Nice, the Convent on the Future of Europe, the EU Constitutional Treaty, the development of EU Law, and most recently on the Treaty of Lisbon, as well as books on EU Lobbying. His most recent publications deal with (i) Geostrategy, Intermediate Europe and MENA, (ii) Decentralization, the Rule of Law, Multilevel Governance, (iii) 9/11 and the Consequences on the EU anti-terror policy, (iv) Regulatory Policy within the EU Treaties, (v) new ways for participatory democracy in the EU.