Miguel Mesquita da Cunha
Prof. Miguel Mesquita da Cunha is a European diplomat and scholar who currently teaches on European Affairs at Saint-Cyr, the senior army academy in France, and at Schola Nova, a liberal arts school in Belgium where Latin is the lingua franca. He is a Moderator and served as a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum in 2005 and 2006.
M. Mesquita da Cunha was appointed by the European Commission as the first EC Fulbright Fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he taught European Integration (Tufts/Harvard, 1991–1992) and has since been invited to lecture by several universities in Europe and the US (including Duke, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Texas at Austin, and the EU Centre at Georgia Tech). He was selected as the French participant in the 2005 Study of the United States Institute on US National Security (sponsored by the Department of State under the Fulbright/Hayes Act).
He was from April 1999 to October 2003 a member of the Group of Political Advisers to the President of the European Commission, which he joined in 1986. His brief encompassed advising the President on political issues, foreign and security affairs, and on the process of European integration. In this capacity, he conducted the Commission’s dialogue with various think-tanks and pressure groups, including religious communities.
In previous positions at the EC, he was a member of the core team steering overall relations between the EU and Asia (ASEM) at the Directorate-General for External Relations (1996–1999). He was the Political Counsellor of the EU Delegation (embassy) in Japan in 1993–1996. He served from 1988 to 1993 in the Secretariat General in the personal team of the Political Director of the Commission. Before assuming these politically sensitive positions, he was in charge of two of the EU’s Mediterranean development programmes (1986–1988).
In those various capacities, he frequently represented the Commission in meetings of the Council of Ministers Working Groups and in European Parliament Select Committees. He participated in numerous negotiations with third countries. He was involved in the internal EC discussions that shaped the Commission’s position on the political dimensions of four European Treaties (Single European Act, Maastricht, Amsterdam, and Nice).
Before joining the EC, M. Mesquita da Cunha served in the Bureau of the Secretary General of NATO (Lord Carrington), Executive Secretariat; he was the Secretary of the NATO Political and of the Economic Committees (1984–1986). He maintains an abiding involvement in Transatlantic and security matters.
He was educated in Portugal and in France. Before his French Baccalauréat, he took the “Concours général de philosophie.” He graduated from the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences-po) in 1981, with majors in Public Law, Finances, and History. He is a member of the Pen Club (in Belgium) and is involved with the Trinity Forum (Europe), the Aspen Institute (in France), and with Common Purpose (in the UK).
M. Mesquita da Cunha holds French and Portuguese citizenship. He is fluent in English, French, and Portuguese and has a good command of Italian and Spanish. He is married to Catherine Van Roie; they have three boys and a daughter. He is keenly interested in the performing arts, literature, and judo.
