Mikulas Dzurinda biography

Mikulas Dzurinda became the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic in October of 1998 after leading a strong election campaign uniting five opposition parties into the Slovak Democratic Coalition to oust the government of the former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar. Under Mr. Dzurinda’s leadership, the Slovak Republic has made a political comeback in its drive to integrate Slovakia into European and transatlantic economic and political structures. The success of the reforms put forward by his Cabinet has been evidenced by Slovakia’s entry into the OECD in September of 2000, great progress of the accession talks with the European Union, and entry of a major U.S. investor to Slovakia, the US Steel, committing over one billion US dollars over the next 10 years. Mikulas Dzurinda entered Slovak politics as one of the founding members of the Christian Democratic Movement (CDM), a conservative political party established in Slovakia in 1990. After the first free elections in Czechoslovakia in 1991, he became the Deputy Minister of Transportation and Postal Service of the Slovak Republic. In 1992, he was elected to the Slovak Parliament where he worked on the Finance & Budget Committee. When Slovakia became an independent country (1993), Mr. Dzurinda was promoted to the position of the Vice Chairman for Economy within the CDM’s ranks. From March to October 1994, he was the Minister of Transportation, Postal Service, and Public Works of the Slovak Republic. After the fall 1994 elections, he returned to the opposition as the member of the parliament. In response to a restrictive election law prepared and passed by the Meciar government in 1997, five opposition parties (CDM, Democratic Party, Green Party, Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Slovakia) coalesced in the Slovak Democratic Coalition. Mikulas Dzurinda became the spokesman of the party and later, as of July 4, 1998, its Chairman. In January 2000, Mikulas Dzurinda founded a new political party, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union, of which he became the Chairman.


Mikulas Dzurinda spoke at American and European universities, think tanks and public forums. He is devoted adherent of strong transatlantic links. He met major Western politicians, including President Bill Clinton, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson, and several senior U.S. senators and congressmen.

Under his leadership, the Visegrad Four, an informal Central European cooperative grouping of Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, got new incentives and arose to a new life. Mikulas Dzurinda is a graduate of the University of Transportation and Communications in Zilina (1979) where he also received his PhD in 1988. He worked at the Transportation Research Institute in Zilina as the Economic Analyst (1979 – 1988) and at the Regional Directorate of the Czechoslovak Railways in Bratislava as the Director for Information Technologies (1988 – 1990).


Mikulas Dzurinda is a keen marathon runner with 13 International Marathons of Peace in Kosice under his belt and the personal best of 2:32 hours. He is married and has two daughters. He speaks English and French. .