Meet Our Staff

Adrian Zeqiri, Head of Office

Before joining ECMI in Kosovo in 2002, Mr Zeqiri served at the OSCE Mission to Kosovo where he also completed an Academic Training Programme on Political Theories, Conflict Resolution and Project Management Skills. As Democratization Officer and Local Government Support Specialist he was responsible for developing and implementing projects in support of the local governments of the Gjilna/Gnjilane region, closely monitoring and reporting on the work of the Municipal Assembly and Municipal Administrative Departments; identifying needs for training of civil servants and developing and implementing training programmes with OSCE HQ.

Being fluent in Albanian and Serbian, Mr Zeqiri has had direct access to local civil society, identifying and implementing projects for the development of NGOs and civil society at large, organizing and developing youth groups and activities in the municipality, establishing and maintaining contacts with local and international NGOs to identify training and material needs as well as key players and potential projects. His contacts at both civil society level and in the Kosovo government structures at the highest level have allowed him to conduct many informal discussions on Kosovo’s status, generating a positive environment for the wide inclusion of various Kosovo minority communities in a constructive approach to the position of communities in the negotiation process.

Arbën Osmani, Programme Coordinator

Burim Gagica, Office/Finance Assistant

Kosovo regional office team is supported by staff at ECMI HQ:

Ulrike Schmidt, Project Associate for South East Europe

Ulrike Schmidt holds a Master degree in Peace Studies/Conflict Resolution from the Department of Social and International Studies at the University of Bradford, England, and the degree of MA in Languages and Literature from the University of Trier, Germany. The focus of her studies in Bradford was on human rights, nationalism, and democratization developments in South Eastern Europe. Her dissertation analyzed how nationalism affected the democratization processes in Serbia and Bulgaria respectively after the Cold War, paying particular attention to the position of and policies towards minorities. In the course of her involvement with ECMI since October 2005, Ulrike Schmidt has been actively involved in implementing ECMI's projects in Kosovo from January to April 2006. Her current tasks revolve around project coordination in Kosovo and different research projects.

Kosovo regional office team initiatives are supported by senior experts from ECMI HQ:

Marc Weller, Director

 Dr Marc Weller studied international law and politics at the University of Hamburg, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the University of Cambridge. He has been a member of the Faculty of Law of the University of Cambridge for several years and has served as the Deputy Director of the Centre for International Studies in the University. He has also been a Visiting Professor in the University of Paris and an Associated Lecturer of King’s College London. He assumed the position of Director of the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg, Germany, in April 2000.

Dr Weller’s main research interest and competencies lie in the area of international peace and security, including especially the management of interethnic tensions and conflicts by outside actors. His publications reflect this interest, featuring edited books on manifold issues of conflict, the struggle for democracy, complex power sharing and crises such as Kosovo and elsewhere. His writings also cover Council of Europe minority-related legislation (FCNM and political participation, minority consultative bodies), the rights of minorities, jurisprudence commentaries and many other aspects of minority governance. In this capacity Dr Weller has been much sought after as a legal advisor, recently during the negotiations of the status of Kosovo.  

Dr Weller has acted as consultant to several delegations to the United Nations Security Council and has been involved in a number of international arbitrations: as a member of the Counsel for Bosnia-Herzegovina in the International Court of Justice; as a legal advisor to a delegation at conferences on Yugoslavia in London; and in negotiations on Kosovo in Rambouillet, Paris and Vienna.

Zdenka Machnyikova,

Zdenka Machnyikova is a legal expert specialized in protection of minorities under international law and the relationship between human rights and conflict prevention. She is a former legal adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on national Minorities. In hr work with the OSCE she has analyzed and evaluated legislation and provided advice regarding policy, law and practice affecting human rights, minority rights, interethnic relations and language policies in many European countries. She too participated in elaboration of the Oslo Recommendations regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities (1998), the Lund Recommendations on Effective Participation of national minorities in Public Life (1999), and the Warsaw Guidelines to Assist National Minority Participation in the Electoral Process (2001), and the Guidelines on the Use of Minority Languages in the Broadcast Media (2003).

Kosovo regional office team works in close cooperation with external project associate consultants:

Mi Zhou

Mi Zhou has a honours degree in Arts and Law and a Masters in International Relations from the University of New South Wales, Australia. In her law degree, she specialised in human rights, minority rights and international law; her Masters dissertation focused on the issue of Tibet's status in relation to China and examined alternatives to the self determination model. Prior to working with ECMI in June 2006, she worked as a solicitor in a corporate law firm in Australia, an advocate for refugees in Egypt with an international law NGO, and for a South African legal centre in constitutional litigation. As an external project consultant for ECMI, she is involved in a range of advisory, capacity building and legal drafting projects in Kosovo. She is also currently completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Virginia Stephens

Graduated from the University of Manchester where she read European studies with French. She also graduated from the University of Montpellier, Paul Valéry III, in History. In 2005 to 2006 she completed a Masters in Politics, Security and Integration at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL, London. Work experience has been with a Peer in the House of Lords as a researcher, with the Home Office and with the Metropolitan Police. She is also involved with UNICEF as a consultant on issues of birth registration of the RAE community within Kosovo. She is currently working with ECMI in Kosovo.