Réka Szemerkényi has been working as Chief Advisor in International Relations to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of MOL Group, Hungarian Oil and Gas Company, since November 2006. In this role she covers European Union energy policy development, provides professional support for executive decisions on a wide range of issues in international affairs, and her main focus is Central European regional energy policy cooperation. With special regards to this work, she was awarded the honour of the Bene Merito Prize in 2010, by Radek Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland. Between 1998 and 2002, Réka Szemerkényi was State Secretary for International Relations and Security Policy to the Prime Minister of Hungary. Between 2002-2004, she was Director of Strategic Studies Research Center at the 21st Century Institute of Budapest. Prior to these, in 1995-6, she was Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, where she wrote Adelphi Paper No. 306. entitled Central European Civil-Military Reforms At Risk, published by Oxford University Press in 1996. Between 1991 and 1993, she worked as senior advisor to the State Secretary, Ministry of Defense of Hungary.Her previous awards include L’Ordre Nationale du Mérite by French President Chirac (2001), and the Award for Contribution to Hungary’s Joining the North Atlantic Alliance, by the Minister of Defense of Hungary (1999).
