Benita Ferrero-Waldner
Austrian diplomat and politician
Benita Ferrero-Waldner (born 5 September 1948) is an Austrian diplomat and politician, and a member of the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). Ferrero-Waldner served as Foreign Minister of Austria 2000–2004 and was the candidate of the Austrian People's Party in the 2004 Austrian presidential election, which she narrowly lost with 47.6% of the votes. She served as the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy from 2004 to 2009, and as the European Commissioner for Trade and European Neighbourhood Policy from 2009 to 2010.
Early life and education
Born in Salzburg, Waldner took her matura exams in 1966 and then studied law, receiving a doctorate from the University of Salzburg in 1970.
Career
Until 1983, Waldner worked in the private sector. Only in 1984 did she enter the diplomatic service. One of her most influential positions was Chef de protocole for Secretary General Boutros-Ghali at the UN in New York City.
From 1995 until 2000, Ferrero-Waldner served as Under-Secretary of State in two governments led by Social Democrats Franz Vranitzky and Viktor Klima. When Wolfgang Schüssel became Chancellor of Austria early in 2000, he made Ferrero-Waldner his Minister for Foreign Affairs, a position she held until October 2004, when she was succeeded by Ursula Plassnik.
In January 2004, it was announced that Ferrero-Waldner would run for president of Austria to succeed Thomas Klestil in July 2004.
“Benita Ferrero-Waldner” enters the record as austrian diplomat and politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Benita, Ferrero-Waldner and Austrian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Benita Ferrero-Waldner” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Benita, Ferrero-Waldner and Austrian provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q78575. VIAF identifies the subject as 121773871. The Library of Congress control number is n00088983. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 2000, 2004 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Benita Ferrero-Waldner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.