Lawrence Meredith Email & Phone Number

Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

I manage our relations and cooperation with Eastern Partnership countries to promote EU values and interests.To this end, I lead 180 passionate and motivated civil servants, of which 90 work in EU Delegations, and oversee an annual cooperation budget of EUR 500 million. Over a 5-year period, this budget is leveraging EUR 17 billion of investments through.

Shaped a team of 18 people to deliver high quality briefings, reports and speeches under tight deadlines.

Negotiated Council conclusions on the new EU enlargement strategy. In the final document, Member States agreed on the need for active and credible accession negotiations — and underlined the importance of the rule of law & EU values in the process.

Negotiated politically sensitive issues related to Kosovo’s European perspective shortly after the unilateral declaration of independence. Laid the groundwork for the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.

At the start of my career, I worked on economic & development cooperation with former Soviet Union countries. I was responsible for technical assistance programmes that supported independent media, human rights and rural development.