Featured Madisonian

Riina Kionka, Alumna

Photo copyright PostTimes

Riina Kionka is the Personal Representative for Human Rights (CFSP) of the SG/HR Javier Solana Council of the European Union in Brussels. Most recently, she held the position of Head of Unit in DGE IV, the Directorate responsible for Transatlantic Relations for the European Union. Prior to that she was the Ambassador of Estonia to Germany.

Kionka was born in Detroit, Michigan and attended public grade and high schools in the Detroit metropolitan area. In 1983, she finished her B.A. with dual majors in International Relations at Madison and German Literature. At MSU, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and played trumpet in the marching band. While at Michigan State, Kionka spent a summer (1980) on language study in the Eifel region of Germany and another (1982) in Berlin, where she served as a U.S. State Department intern in the political section of the Berlin (West) Mission.

In 1984 Kionka moved to New York City, where she began work toward a Ph.D. in Political Science (specializing in the Soviet Union) at Columbia University. In 1986 she earned an M.A. and in 1988 a Certificate of Completion from Columbia's Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union. In the meantime, Kionka interned with Radio Free Europe Research in Munich (summer 1986) and studied Russian at an intensive course at the University of Norwich in Vermont (summer 1987).

In 1988-1989, Kionka won a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) dissertation research grant to conduct research at the University of Bonn and the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs in the same city. In 1989 she returned to Munich as an analyst at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute, where she wrote for four years on Baltic political and economic developments. 

Kionka joined the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1993, where she established and directed a policy planning staff, a job that included among other duties speechwriting and ghostwriting for various Estonian political leaders. In 1995, she took over as Political Director of the MFA. 

In 1996, Kionka took an academic and extended maternity leave from the MFA. She defended her dissertation in 1996, a study of the influence of international organizations on domestic policy, specifically in formulation of nationality-cum-security policy in Estonia. In Spring 2000, Kionka resumed her duties with the Policy Planning Department of the MFA. In the fall of 2000, Kionka was named Ambassador of Estonia to Germany and handed over her letters of accreditation to President Johannes Rau. 

Kionka has taught at Queens College (CUNY) and Michigan State University and frequently speaks on Baltic developments. In addition to having written for RFE/RL publications and broadcast during her tenure there, she has contributed commentary and analysis to such publications as The International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal Europe, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Oxford Analytica, Soviet Analyst, Review of Central and East European Law, Politique Etrangere, Postimees (Tartu), Eesti Päevaleht (Tallinn), Hommikuleht (Tallinn), Baltisches Jahrbuch; and has contributed chapters to Graham Smith's The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (Longman), RFE/RL and Macmillan's joint project, The Demise of the USSR. 

Kionka is married and has two small children.