SPEAKERS

Juhan Parts started his mandate as the Estonian Member of the European Court of Auditors in January 2017 and is assigned to Chamber III - External action, security and justice. Mr Parts is the former Prime Minister of Estonia (2003-2005).

He was Deputy Secretary General at the Ministry of Justice from 1992 to 1998, Auditor General of Estonia from 1998 to 2002 and Estonian Minister of Economy and Communications from 2007 to 2014. Mr Parts holds a degree in Law from the University of Tartu.

Hervé-Adrien Metzger, a graduate engineer (École Polytechnique) and a lawyer, is a Senior magistrate in the Cour des comptes of France (Conseiller Maître), currently the Chairman of the International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN) in Brussels. After a professional start as a Naval Officer in the French Navy, he joined the Cour des comptes in 1990 and developed a broad and diverse expertise by holding several positions both in the defence sector (namely as Economic and Budgetary Advisor to the French Minister of Defence and as Deputy CEO of the French National Research Agency for Aeronautics and Space) and in international auditing (as the External auditor of many organisations such as the UNESCO, the ICC and the WEU).  

Ana Gomes has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2004. She was re-elected in June 2009 and in May 2014 for a third term. In this mandate (2014-2019), she is a full member of the Subcommittee for Security and Defence, as well as a full member of the Delegation for the relations with the United-States and the Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean. She is substitute member on the Foreign Affairs Committee and on the Subcommittee on Human Rights. She has been a career diplomat between 1980 and 2003, being the Ambassador of Portugal in Jakarta, Indonesia between 2000 and 2003. Ana Gomes' academic background is Law.

Arturo Alfonso-Meiriño is the Director of the OCCAR Executive Administration since 1 March 2017. Prior to that, as Major General of the Spanish Air Force, he was Deputy National Armaments Director for International Relations. Between 2005 and 2011 he served as Director of Industry and Market at the European Defence Agency (EDA).

Throughout his career he has been greatly involved in key international defence cooperation programs of the Spanish Air Force (SAF). He graduated from the Spanish Air Force Academy, graduated in Business and Economic Sciences from the University of Madrid and obtained a Master's Degree in Security and Defence from the same University.

Kim Hublé is working at the European Court of Auditors since 2010. As from October 2013, she has been involved, both as auditor and as Head of Task, in several performance audits in the area of external action, security and justice.

Prior to joining the European Court of Auditors, Kim worked as financial and business controller for DSV Solutions Automotive and as financial auditor for Deloitte. She holds a Master's degree in Applied Economic Sciences and a Master's degree in European Integration and Development.

Angelo Maria Quaglini is a Member of the College of Auditors of the ATHENA mechanism since 2013. He is magistrate at the Italian Court of Auditors, assigned to the United Audit Chambers and to the Abruzzo Regional audit Chamber. Since 2016 he is a Member of the Board of Auditors of the Italian Transport Regulation Authority, and an alternate member of the Supervisory Committee of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Until 2013 Mr Quaglini had worked at the Italian Central Bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Italian Tax Authority. He graduated in Business Administration as well as in Law and holds a PhD in Corporate Law.

Bettina Jakobsen is the Danish Member of the European Court of Auditors and Dean of Chamber III, dealing with external action, security and justice. She is a former IBAN Auditor and former Assistant Auditor General of the Danish National Audit Office. She has been a member of the Audit Committees of the EU Investment Fund, EU Investment Bank and the Council of Europe. Ms Jakobsen has a Master's Degree in law and a Master in Public Governance (MPG) from the University of Copenhagen and the Copenhagen Business School.

When she joined EDA in 2018, Pavlina Markovska had more than 15 years of experience in auditing and internal control in the private sector, the European Commission and at International Organisations. In her current role, she advises the EDA on dealing with risks, by issuing independent opinions on the quality of management and control systems and by issuing recommendations for improving the conditions of implementation of operations and promoting sound financial management. Besides the Master's Degree in Business Administration, she is a Fellow Certified Charted Accountant (FCCA) and holds a professional CGAP (Certified Government Auditing Professional) certification.

Pedro Serrano has been Deputy Secretary General for CSDP (Common Security and Defence Policy) and Crisis Response at the European External Action Service (EEAS) since 2015. Previously Pedro Serrano was Managing Director for Crisis Response Operational Coordination of the EEAS, and Principal Advisor on External Affairs to the former President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy. He was the first to head the EU Delegation at the United Nations, New York, after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. He has been active in the field of CSDP since 2000, including by heading the Directorate for Civilian Crisis Management at the General Secretariat of the Council. Prior to joining the EU, Pedro Serrano served as a Spanish diplomat. 

Steven Blockmans is Head of EU foreign policy at the Centre for European Policy Studies CEPS and Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam. For more than 20 years, he has combined his academic work with contract research carried out for EU and national donors, consultancy activities and training for professionals.

Before joining CEPS in 2012, Mr Blockmans was Head of Research at the Asser Institute, an international law centre based in The Hague. He has a Ph.D. in International Law and a MA in Public International Law from Leiden University. 

Dr. Hans Leijtens has been a member of the International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN) since September 2018 and will be the new IBAN chairman as of August 2019. Before joining the IBAN, Leijtens had been Project Director for the General Reconstruction of the Windward Islands after Hurricane Irma, and was the quartermaster for the St. Maarten Integrity Chamber. He has worked in several positions at the Royal Dutch Marechaussee and the Ministry of Defence. In 2012, he was appointed Commander of the Royal Marechaussee, and from 2015 to 2017 he was the Director-General of the Dutch Tax Office. Hans Leijtens studied Sociology and Psychology and holds a PhD.

Marie-Josee Bouffard joined the International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN) in 2015 with more than 10 years of experience. As a performance auditor, she has been working on defence and security related issues at the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and Department of National Defence. Mrs Bouffard worked on high profile issues such as the Joint Strike Fight Programme, Search and Rescue Readiness, NSIP program, Fraud and Corruption Prevention within NATO and its missions and management of Trust Funds. She holds a Master's Degree in Political and Economic Sciences and enjoyed volunteering for NGOs in the area of human security and aviation.

Gilbert Kim is a performance auditor with the International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN) since 2015. He is responsible for designing, implementing and managing performance audits of NATO programs and activities. Mr Kim received his Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University and his Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Los Angeles.

He began his career as a research associate, working on evaluations of federally-funded education and public health programs. He then became an analyst, later a senior analyst, with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), working on a variety of performance audits involving foreign assistance, homeland security and national defence.

Mr Guillaume Bigot has been appointed as Head of Finance in OCCAR-EA (Executive Administration of the Joint Armament Cooperation Organisation) in August 2016. Across more than 20 years, he has occupied several financial posts in the French MoD dealing successively with commitments, payments, accounting and financial planning areas. These activities have continuously crossed international cooperation, such as involvement in MoU negotiations, tracking of national contributions to Programme offices or NATO agencies. He has previously been in post at OCCAR-EA and managed the design and implementation of its Financial Management System.

Maria Annunziata Rucireta joined the Italian public administration in 1983 and became a judge at the Corte dei conti in 1995. She is currently member of the Audit Chamber for International and European Affairs, member of the Joint Audit Chambers, member of the Special Audit Office for security-classified public contracts. She has been the Italian representative on the OCCAR's Board of Auditors since 2014; she was elected as Chair of the Board with effect from January 2019. From 2003 to 2013 she was seconded to the European Court of Auditors to serve as the Head of the Italian Cabinet. 

Gailė Dagilienė, ECA

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