# Michael Dóczy

Michael Dóczy, born on January 20, 1972, is an Austrian diplomat currently serving as the European Union's ambassador to Bolivia, a position he has held since September 2020. With a career spanning over 25 years in geopolitics and European Union affairs, he has held prominent roles within the Austrian Foreign Ministry and the European Union's diplomatic service, (European External Action Service), in the cabinet of the European Commissioner for the European Neighbourhood and Enlargement negotiations and in the Policy Unit of the General Secretariat of the Council. Dóczy speaks his native German, and also English, Spanish, and Italian.

## Diplomatic career

Michael Dóczy embarked on his career within the European Union's directorate of the Austrian Federal Chancellery in 1998. He later became a member of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2000. In 2002, he was appointed as Attaché at the Austrian embassy in Madrid. The following year, Dóczy's trajectory took him to the Austrian Representation to the European Union in Brussels. There, he served as the Deputy Representative for Austria on the European Union's Political and Security Committee, contributed as a representative to the Political-Military Group, and participated in the EU-NATO Capability Group. When Austria held the Presidency of the European Union in 2006, he took on the leadership as chairman of the aforementioned groups. In 2007, he became the Austrian representative in the Policy Unit of the High Representative of the European Union for Common Foreign and Security Policy.
In January 2011, Michael Dóczy joined the then-recently established European External Action Service as the first Austrian diplomat to. He held the position of Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Helga Schmid.
After serving in this capacity until 2015, he transitioned back to the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. There, he took on the positions of Deputy Director and Director-designate for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union within the Austrian Foreign Ministry. From 2017 to 2019, he served as a senior advisor in the Cabinet of Johannes Hahn, the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations. During this period, Dóczy was i.a. in charge of the European Union's reform program for Ukraine.

### EU ambassador to Bolivia

Since 2020, Dóczy serves as the Ambassador of the European Union to Bolivia. He is currently leading a cooperation program valued at 104 million euros for the period 2021-2024. It is the European Union’s biggest cooperation programme in South America, focusing on environmental and climate change issues such as green energy and water management, fight against drugs and human rights.

### Lithium

Bolivia is home to the world’s biggest lithium reserves, a critical raw material essential for the production of batteries and hence of key importance for the green transition. In the context of the EU Global Gateway Investment Agenda, launched by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2021, Dóczy engaged with the Bolivian authorities on the question of lithium extraction. In November 2023, a delegation of several European companies visited several salt flats and presented their technological capacities in a fair in La Paz, inaugurated by Dóczy.

## Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine

A few month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dóczy published a response to an article by Wolfgang Sporrer, a member of the Adjunct faculty at the Hertie School, in the Austrian weekly newspaper “Falter” under the title “Antwort auf den Artikel "Kriegsszenarien in der Ukraine"”. He criticised Sporrer for showing misleading equidistance between the aggressor and the victim of aggression and for blaming the West for allegedly adding fuel to the fire. He warned that “it may simply be inconceivable from a rational “Western” perspective that Moscow is actually planning further military aggression. This is understandable, but at the same time a dangerous self-deception. We should have no illusions: an armed conflict (some use the word war) can no longer be ruled out.”

## Debate about Austria's security policy

After the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022, Dóczy together with a small group of like-minded, including former presidential candidate Irmgard Griss, initiated a public letter to the President of Austria, its government and the Parliament, demanding a public debate about the future of Austria’s security policy, the role of Austria’s neutrality and dependency of Russian gas after many years of ingratiation with Russia. The goal of the debate was to lead to the adoption of a new Austrian security doctrine. The letter was signed by 80 members of Austria’s civil society, private sector, military, retired diplomats, doctors etc. None of the addressees responded to the letter. The group sent a second letter in 2023. The Austrian government announced the elaboration of a new Security Doctrine by the end of 2023 but no doctrine has been presented or adopted, nor has there been any public debate.