Dr Javier Solana is a Spanish politician, diplomat and academic. He served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1992 until 1995, when he was appointed Secretary General of NATO. In 1999 Dr Solana became Secretary General of the Council of the European Union and the first High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, a post he held for ten years. Dr Solana is president of ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics. He is also distinguished senior fellow in foreign policy at Brookings Institution, a Fisher Family Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, chairman of the Aspen Institute España, honorary president of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and a member of the board of the International Crisis Group, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Human Rights Watch, as well as senior visiting professor at the London School of Economics, where he was awarded an honorary degree in December 2010.