Michael Steiner

Head of UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo

(The Economist, UNMIK)

Michael Steiner was appointed head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in December 2001 by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He is the third special representative of the secretary general for Kosovo since UNMIK was established in 1999. He follows Hans. Haekkerup of Denmark and Bernard Kouchner of France.

Prior to his appointment in Kosovo, Steiner served nearly six years as principal deputy high representative in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is an experienced diplomat and former foreign and security policy adviser to Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of the Federal Republic of Germany. Steiner has held posts in Prague, Zagreb and at the permanent mission of Germany to the United Nations in New York.

Michael Steiner was born in Munich, Germany, on 28 November 1949. He studied law in Paris and Munich from 1971 to 1977 and qualified as a judge in 1981. Later that year, he entered the German Foreign Service. During a distinguished career with the German government, Steiner served as head of the liaison office for German humanitarian aid in Zagreb, as a German member of the six-nation Contact Group on the former Yugoslavia, and as head of the co-ordination unit for multilateral peace efforts. He also led the special section "International Peace Efforts in Yugoslavia" from 1994 to 1995.