Erik Kopač
Permanent Representative – Slovenia
2019
From September 2016 to September 2018 Dr. Erik Kopač was State Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister responsible for the area of National Security and Head of the Interministerial Group for the implementation of the Final Award of the Arbitral Tribunal regarding the border between the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia.
His field of academic expertise is national security and his research areas cover national and transnational security and defense systems, national and international security, economic security, defense expenditures, defense industry, arms procurement, military manpower, crisis management and critical infrastructure.
Dr. Erik Kopač earned his PhD in 2010 in the area of Defense Studies with the thesis titled Military Labor Market – case study of Slovenia and specialized in the field of defense economics and management of defense resources.
After graduating at Faculty of Economics (1996) and Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana (1999), he gained his masters in 2003 with the thesis Economic aspects of alternative ways of manning of the armed forces - case study of Slovenia.
From 1999 to 2000 he was employed by the Ministry of Defense, and since 2000 he is a researcher in the Defense Research Center.
He was visiting researcher in several research institutions, among them also in Defense Resource Management Institute, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, USA.
Since 1999 he is a lecturer - at the beginning as assistant later as professor - at the Chair of Defense Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana. As guest lecturer he participated in national and international security studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Zagreb, at the Command and at the Staff School at the Military Schools Center of the Slovenian Armed Forces, and at several others Universities.
In the last 20 years Dr. Kopač participated in more than 20 Slovenian and European research projects and published more than 150 scientific and professional articles.
He is married toTanja Mozetič Kopač, they have one daughter.
He is fluent in English and Croatian and functional in German and Italian.