State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia

Mr. Andris Teikmanis was born in 1959 in Riga, Latvia. In 1978 he studied law studies at the Latvian State University. He speaks fluent English, German, French and Russian. After obtaining a diploma from Latvian State University he joined the Riga City Home affairs administration as an investigator where he served from 1983-1988, until he was elected as the judge of the Riga district. In 1989 Mr. Teikmanis was elected as the chairman of the Riga City People’s Deputy Council. In 1992 after the Riga municipality reform and establishment of the Riga City Council he was elected as the Chairman of the Riga City when he left the post in 1994.

As a judge he was the first person to exonerate the accused member of „Helsinki – 86” for an illegal demonstration in 1988. Later on he was among the founders of the Popular Front of Latvia. He was elected and became an active member of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia from 1990 to 1993. In July, 1994, Andris Teikmanis  was appointed the Special Assignments Ambassador to the European Council in Strasbourg. When Latvia was admitted into the organisation in 1995 he was then appointed as the special representative of Latvia to the European Council until 1998 when he was appointed as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Federal Republic of Germany. After his four-year service in Germany he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia as the Deputy State Secretary. In 2005 he took the strategically important and complex task to be the Ambassador of Latvia to the Russian Federation. In 2008 Mr. Teikmanis returned to the central apparatus of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia as the State Secretary.