15 Facts About Ivan Pilip

Ivan Pilip served in government from 1992 to 1998, leading the KDS before it merged with the Civic Democratic Party.

Ivan Pilip was among the deputies who split from the Civic Democrats to form the Freedom Union and in 1998 he went into opposition.

Ivan Pilip was detained in Cuba in early 2001 for almost a month after meeting opponents of the Cuban government, before being released after international pressure on Cuba.

Ivan Pilip lost his seat in the Chamber of Deputies in 2002, but would serve as interim leader of Freedom Union for a period afterwards, before serving as a Vice-President at the European Investment Bank from 2004 to 2007.

Ivan Pilip gained a degree in international business and trade at the University of Economics in Prague and did post-graduate studies at the Complutense University of Madrid.

However following the end of Communism in 1989 Ivan Pilip became manager of a medical equipment factory and joined the Christian Democratic Party after it was founded in 1990.

Ivan Pilip was elected chairman of the KDS in December 1993, succeeding Vaclav Benda, after winning an election for the party leadership.

However in 1995 the KDS agreed to merge with the Civic Democrats, with 5 of the 10 KDS deputies, including Ivan Pilip, joining the Civic Democrats.

Ivan Pilip stayed as Education Minister after the merger, but became seen as a leading figure within the Civic Democrats, before becoming finance minister in the summer of 1997.

Klaus was re-elected as leader of the Civic Democrats, but Ivan Pilip continued on as Finance Minister, along with 3 other rebel Civic Democrats, in a caretaker government led by the Governor of the Czech National Bank, Josef Tosovsky.

However at the 1998 election Freedom Union only won 19 seats, compared to 63 for the Civic Democrats, with Ivan Pilip being one of the elected deputies.

Ivan Pilip was not elected as a deputy, but as first deputy chairman of Freedom Union, became acting leader of the party after the resignation of Hana Marvanova during post-election talks on the formation of a new government.

Freedom Union became a junior party in a coalition led by the Social Democratic Party, while Ivan Pilip remained acting leader of the party until Petr Mares was elected as the new leader in January 2003.

In June 2004 Ivan Pilip was appointed as one of eight Vice-Presidents of the European Investment Bank, the first from any of the states that joined the European Union in 2004.

Ivan Pilip served a 3-year term as Vice-President until the summer of 2007.