Ana Palacio

Ana Palacio is Senior Vice President for International Affairs and Marketing at AREVA, the world's largest nuclear energy company. Prior to her current appointment, she was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the World Bank Group. She joined Carnegie Corporation's board of trustees in December 2005. A lawyer by profession, Ana Palacio specializes in EU internal market law, and has held the most senior positions in the governing bodies of the Madrid Bar, as well as the European Bar (CCBE). She is an honorary member of the Bar of England and Wales and a member of the Board of Trustees and the former Executive President of the Academy of European Law (ERA), and Distinguished Professor of the European College in Parma. She was the first woman to serve as Spain's Foreign Minister (2002-2004) and, at the time, held the most senior post ever filled by a woman in the Spanish government. She has served as member of the Spanish Parliament, where she chaired the Joint Committee of the two Houses for European Union Affairs (2004-2006). As Prime Minister Aznar's representative to the European Convention and the Convention's Presidium (2001-2002), Ana Palacio was at the forefront of the debate on the future of the European Union and actively participated in the drafting and legal discussions pertaining the reform of the European Treaties. In January 2004 she was listed among the Wall Street Journal's 75 'global opinion leaders'. In October 2001 the same newspaper, under the heading 'Europe's Lawyer', published an extensive feature article on her in its supplement on '12 influential players on the world business stage'. As member of the European Parliament (1994-2002), she has chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, and was elected by her peers to chair in two half legislatures the Conference of Committee Chairmen, the Parliament's most senior body for the coordination of its legislative work. Inspired by legal legitimacy as the mark of identity of the EU, her main addresses and reports have pinpointed the legislation on internal market as well as the security area, especially focused on justice and home affairs and human rights. She is a member of the Commission on the Liberalization of the French Economy instituted by President Sarkozy (2007-2008) a member of the Board of the Atlantic Council of the United States (since March 2008), and sits on the Advisory Board of different institutions -among others: Council on Foreign Relations (US and EU), Institut Montaigne, Aspen Institute Italia, Instituto de Empresa (IE), Fundación para el Análisis y los Estudios Sociales (FAES), Fondation pour l' Innovation Politique, Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales (FRIDE) and CSIS Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership. She is member of the Global Advisory Council of "The American Interest" and the Revue de Droit de l'Union européenne. Ana Palacio graduated from the Lycée Français (Baccalauréat on Mathematics) with honors granted by the French Government to "the best foreign student who finished studies that year". She holds degrees in Law, and Political Science and Sociology; her performance in her degree studies merited the Award for Academic Achievement (Premio Extraordinario Fin de Carrera).