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Mr. Wolfgang PETRITSCH

Mr. Petritsch was born in Klagenfurt, Austria on 26 August 1947. He holds a doctorate in South-East European History and Politics from the University of Vienna, which he received in 1972.

From 1977 to 1983, he was the Press Secretary and subsequently the Chief of Cabinet of the Federal Chancellor of Austria. He then served as Minister-Counsellor at the Austrian Delegation to the OECD. In 1984, Mr. Petritsch was appointed Director of the Austrian Press and Information Service in the United States and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. Then, in 1992, he returned to Vienna as Head of the Department for Multilateral Economic Co-operation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1994, Mr. Petritsch became Head of the Department for Information on European Affairs at the Federal Chancellery and a member of the Federal Government’s EU-accession Task Force. From 1995 to 1997, he became Head of Department for International Relations of the City of Vienna. From 1997 to 1999, Mr. Petritsch served as Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During his tenure as Ambassador, he was appointed Special Envoy of the European Union for Kosovo and EU Chief Negotiator at the Kosovo Peace Agreement talks at Rambouillet and Paris.  From 1999 to 2001, he was Chair of the “Succession Commission for the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”, in charge of distributing the public assets and liabilities among the successor states, resulting in the Vienna Agreement of 2001. In 1999, Mr. Petritsch was named High Representative of the International Community for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

From 2002 until his nomination as Permanent Representative of Austria to the OECD, Mr. Petritsch was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Austria to the Specialised UN Agencies in Geneva; to the WTO; and to the Conference on Disarmament.

Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch took up his duties as Permanent Representative of Austria to the OECD on 4 March 2008.

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