Ambassador Marina Kaljurand was elected to the European Parliament and started her duties as MEP on July 2nd, 2019 after resigning from the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu). She has been a member of the Estonian Social Democrats Party since June 2018 and served as Estonian Foreign Minister from 2015-2016.
In 2020, Kaljurand became a member of the UN Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters and was a member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation from 2018 to 2019. She remains the Commissioner of the Global Commission of the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC), which she chaired (in 2017-2019) until being elected to the Estonian Parliament.
Kaljurand has served twice as the Estonian National Expert at the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (GGE), in 2014-2015 and 2016-2017.
She began her career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1991. She held several leadership positions, including Undersecretary for Legal and Consular Affairs (Legal Adviser), Undersecretary for Trade and Development Cooperation, Undersecretary for Political Affairs. She served as Ambassador of Estonia to the State of Israel, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Canada and the United States of America. Kaljurand headed the legal working group at the Estonian accession negotiations to the European Union and was the Chief Negotiator in Estonian accession negotiations to the OECD.
Marina Kaljurand graduated cum laude from the Tartu University (1986, LLM). She has a professional diploma from the Estonian School of Diplomacy (1992) and MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (F95).
