June 20, 2011

Former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar joins SAIS

Jose Maria Aznar, former president of the government of Spain, has joined the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies as a distinguished fellow.

Based at the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, Aznar, who was president from 1996 to 2004, will serve as a focal point for the center’s Atlantic Basin Initiative, which is seeking to research, map and chart the future of the relationships among the four Atlantic Ocean continents. His activities will include giving periodic lectures to SAIS students. He also will contribute to the center’s ongoing work on strengthening transatlantic relations through NATO and the EU, and to the advancement of SAIS’ Latin-American relationships.

“We are delighted to welcome President Aznar to the center,” said Dan Hamilton, CTR executive director and Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Research Professor. “As president of the government, he was a visionary leader for Spain, and I am confident he will bring that same kind of visionary leadership to our center.”

Aznar joins former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton, also a distinguished fellow at CTR, as a European former head of government now dedicating a portion of his time to the advancement of the transatlantic relationship through SAIS.