Robert Cooper is Director-General for External and Politico-Military Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union. He was brought up in Britain and Kenya, returning from Nairobi to the UK to attend Oxford University (Worcester College PPE) in 1966.   He spent a year at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia joining the Diplomatic Service in 1970.  He has served in New York, Tokyo, Brussels and Bonn.  His Foreign Office career was divided broadly between Asia and Europe.  From 1989 to 1993, he was Head of the Policy Planning Staff.   Later in the 1990s, he was Director for Asia and was then Deputy Secretary for Defence and Overseas Affairs in the Cabinet Office.

Before moving to Brussels in 2002 he was Special Representative for the British Government on Afghanistan.

He has published a number of essays and articles on international affairs and, most recently, a book of essays:  “The Breaking of Nations”, Atlantic Press 2003.