Jozef Migaš

Jozef Migaš
President of Slovakia Acting
In office 30 October 1998 – 15 June 1999 Serving with Mikuláš Dzurinda (Acting)
Prime Minister	Mikuláš Dzurinda
Preceded by	Vladimír Mečiar (Acting)
Succeeded by	Rudolf Schuster
Speaker of the National Council
In office 30 October 1998 – 15 October 2002
Preceded by	Ivan Gašparovič
Succeeded by	Pavol Hrušovský
Ambassador to Ukraine
In office 1995–1996
Personal details
Born	(1954-01-07) 7 January 1954 Pušovce, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia)
Political party	Direction-Social Democracy
Other political affiliations	Party of the Democratic Left, Communist Party of Slovakia (1939)

Jozef Migaš (born 7 January 1954) is a Slovak politician who was Speaker of National Council of the Slovak Republic from 1998 to 2002, during the government of Mikuláš Dzurinda. He is now in political retirement.

Biography and career

From 1973-1978 he studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. In 1982, he graduated with a Ph.D. Until 1989, he worked as an assistant professor at the Higher Political School of the Central Committee Communist Party of Slovakia in Bratislava, working in party structures at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Kosice. In 1989, he became one of the founders of the Democratic Left Party, being a member of the party’s executive committee. In 1993, he switched to diplomatic work, being an adviser to the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Kiev. In 1995 and 1996, he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Slovakia to Ukraine.

From 1996-2001, he was Chairman of the Democratic Left Party. Duirng this time, he was Chairman Parliament of Slovakia (1998-2002). From 30 October 1998 to 15 June 1999, he was the Acting President of Slovakia, serving after the completion of the presidency of Michal Kováč and the political crisis lasting more than a year. In 2003, he completed an internship in foreign policy and improving English in the United States at the American Language Communication Center. He speaks several foreign languages outside the Slovak language: English, Russian, Ukrainian. He was engaged in entrepreneurial activity in the 2000s before going back to the diplomatic sphere in 2009 to become the Ambassador of Slovakia in Russia, a position he served in until 2014. On 2 February 2016, he was appointed to the post of ambassador to Belarus.

Victory Day and dismissal

Main article: 2020 Minsk Victory Day Parade

One of the attendees of the 2020 Minsk Victory Day Parade was Migaš, who resigned later on as a result of his attendance. He would later be awarded the Order of Francysk Skaryna by President Lukashenko.

Awards

• Russia – Order of Friendship (28 October 2014)
• Belarus – Order of Francysk Skaryna (15 June 2020)