About us
The ESRT is a permanent membership-based platform with its own legal structure and it is complemented by a high-level Advisory Board composed of relevant actors in the field of security and defence.
WHAT WE DO
The key function of the ESRT is to provide a forum for EU-centered security and defence topics. It is a neutral platform between the EU Institutions and encompassing all major political groups of the European Parliament.
The structure of the ESRT consists of four main pillars:
- the Annual Conference,
- a series of working groups throughout the year chaired by different MEPs thus reflecting the political balance of the European Parliament,
- expert background briefings on specific issues and
- a yearly briefing book by a Study Group on security and defence inspired by the work of the ESRT. Participation is based on membership or by invitation. Membership is free for EU institution officials and Members of the European Parliament. Discussions are strictly off the record.
ESRT MANAGEMENT
Christoph Raab is Director of the European Security Round Table. He has a degree in Economics and a Masters from the College of Europe. From 2002 to 2005, he was personal assistant to Karl von Wogau, MEP, in the European Parliament. In November 2005, he founded COPURA, and has since been its Managing Director.
Andy Stirnal has taken over the position of the ESRT Project Coordinators in 2010. He is in charge of the conception and organization of all Round Tables and Conferences of the European Security Round Table. Andy Stirnal studied in Strasbourg and Berlin Communication and Politics and holds a post gradual degree in Political Sciences. Before joining the ESRT he had worked as a Conference Manager in Berlin and as Policy Officer for a Regional Business Representation in Brussels. He speaks German, English and French.
Wiebke Miara has worked at the ESRT as Executive Assistant and Project Manager since April 2011. Before joining the ESRT she worked at JK Events, an event agency based in Brussels. She studied tourism management in Freiburg, Germany and worked for 4 years in London in the tourism industry at an incoming agency as Senior Operations Executive before she moved to Brussels in 2006.
Kathrin Fichtel has joined the ESRT as External Communications Manager in October 2011. After her Magistra Artium in Cultural Studies in Bremen, Germany, she graduated with dinstinction from a master’s course in Multi-Media Journalism in Bournemouth, England. From 2007 to 2011 she worked for Europe’s biggest publishing company Axel Springer Verlag in Berlin and Hamburg – most of the time as a reporter and web editor for the business section of the newspaper “Hamburger Abendblatt”.
Paul Tuthill comes to the ESRT as a Project Assistant from the United States. He was born in Boise, Idaho but is most recently from Portland, Oregon. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Colorado State University and has spent several years since then working in IT and web and database programming. Currently, he is pursuing a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Kent in Brussels.
Alexa Keinert has been working at the ESRT, Brussels, as a Project Assistant, since September 2011. After graduation with distinction of the Otto-Kühne College in Bonn in July 2011, she started with the ESRT-team in Brussels assigned to the organisation staff preparing and executing international ESRT-Roundtables in Brussels and abroad. She has been member of the editing team of the independent quarterly magazine “The European - Security and Defence Union” since June 2011.
Hartmut Bühl is Senior Advisor to the ESRT. After an international military career, he retired in 1998 from the German Armed Forces as a General Staff Colonel. After having been the first EADS Vice President and Director for EU Defence Policy and NATO in Brussels (2001-2005), he is since 2008 President of his own company International Consulting - EU and NATO affairs in Brussels. He is also the correspondent of the monthly Behördenspiegel, Bonn/Berlin and head of its Brussels office. Since 2008 he is the publisher and editor in Chief of the magazine "The European - Security and Defence Union" which was awarded 2011 with the trophy "Citizenship, Security and Defence" under the patronage of Herman van Rompuy, President of the Council of the European Union.
ADVISORY BOARD
 | Please find all members of our Advisory Board in this PDF-Document. |
