New head of OSCE Mission to Moldova is Louis O’Neill

The head of OSCE Mission to Moldova, William Hill met with the president Vladimir Voronin on the occasion of ending his diplomatic mandate in Moldova. According to a press release of the Presidency, the head of state thanked the OSCE ambassador for the activity performed in Moldova, for the substantial contributions in strengthening the cooperation with European structures. Vladimir Voronin expressed his hope that the efficient collaboration with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will continue, especially in identifying political solutions for the territorial reintegration of Moldova. During the meeting there were presented some opinions on the settlement process of the separatist conflict and the perspectives of overcoming the Transnistrian problem. At the meeting, William Hill introduced Louis O’Neil to the head of state. He will be the new head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova. According to a press release of OSCE Mission, Ambassador Louis F. O’Neill graduated with a B.A. in Slavic Languages and Literature from Stanford University in 1990 and received a Masters degree in Russian and East European Studies from Stanford in 1992. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Harvard Law School in 1996. He spent 1990-1991 at Moscow State University as a Fulbright Presidential Scholar and from 1992-1993 he worked at The Moscow Times newspaper as a journalist and designer. Upon completing law school in 1996, Ambassador O’Neill joined the Harvard Institute for International Development as Project Associate for a Legal Reform Project in Moscow, Russia. He helped draft market-based laws and regulations for the Russian Duma and Federal Securities Commission. O’Neill worked as an Associate in the Corporate and Intellectual Property Departments of the White & Case law firm in New York, and then as a General Counselor for the Falconwood Corporation in New York, responsible for all legal matters, business development and administrative oversight for this privately held investment/venture capital company, and then O’Neill worked as an Assistant District Attorney at the Special Prosecutions Bureau of the New York County District Attorney’s Office. In 2004 he became a White House Fellow. In that capacity, he served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of State and was assigned to the Office of Russian Affairs. He was tasked, among other things, with issues related to counter-terrorism and law-enforcement co-operation, legal and appellate issues. Ambassador O’Neill also handled special projects for the Secretary of State, one of which was an assignment as U.S. expert to the OSCE Minsk Group’s Fact Finding Mission to the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan Surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. In 2005 Ambassador O’Neill joined the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. State Department and was responsible for long-term U.S. policy towards Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and the Caucasus. Ambassador O’Neill has been awarded with the Pro Bono Award of the Legal Aid Society in 2000, the Franklin Award of the U.S. State Department in 2005 and is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is fluent in Russian, conversant in Spanish and also speaks some Romanian. His appointment as Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova takes effect on 21 July 2006.