Born in Kecskemét, Hungary on 5 December 1941. He graduated from the Toldy Ferenc Secondary School in Budapest, and earned his degree at the Marx Károly University of Economic Sciences (today: Corvinus University) of Budapest in 1963. He is proficient in English, French, German and Russian. 

Finishing his university studies, he started his career at a foreign trade company, and subsequently he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Meanwhile, he served as a diplomat responsible for EU affairs for five years (1982-1987) in Brussels. Between 1992 and 1993 he served as State Secretary for Public Administration at the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Between 1994 and 2000, he was Ambassador of Hungary to Denmark and Germany. After a short period of university commitments, he returned to public administration and became State Secretary for Integration and External Economic Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He participated in the EU accession negotiations in this capacity, and represented the Hungarian Government in the constitutional European Convention. Subsequently serving as an Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels, he established the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the EU, and worked as a member of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper). In 2004 he was nominated the first Hungarian Member of the European Commission responsible for regional policy. Since his return to Hungary, he has been a professor at the Corvinus University and the Central European University, where he established a research centre to address the issues of EU enlargement. 

Besides his involvement in public administration and diplomacy, he has been teaching in higher education for three and a half decades. After receiving the title of Doctor of University, he earned a CSc degree and subsequently got his habilitation. In 2001 he was nominated university professor. He defended his doctoral thesis in political science at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2003. His thesis was published under the title "Európai egyesülés és modernizáció" (European unification and modernisation) (Osiris 2001). He is the author and co-author of numerous studies, books and articles. His book on the foreign policy of the European Union (KJK 2002) is a "Jean Monnet" course material approved by the European Commission. He is a regular visiting lecturer at universities within and outside Hungary. 

Among others, he is the Vice President of the Hungarian Council of the European Movement, the Magyar Közgazdasági Társaság (Hungarian Economic Association), and the ECSA, the global network of research on European integration. As a European Commission agent, he has been the European coordinator of the Paris-Bratislava trans-European railway line since 2005. Between 2003 and 2007 he was president of the Hungarian Federation of Horse Breeding and Equestrian Sport Associations.  

Awards: Commander's Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour