Our Team: Glyn Ford

In over 25 years in the EP Glyn Ford developed an unrivaled expertise on East Asia as a Member of the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committees. This interest started even before his election to the European Parliament (EP), when he was a visiting Professor in ‘Science and Technology Policy’ at Tokyo University. Immediately after his Japanese experience, he was elected at the EP and became a member of the Delegation for Relations with Japan. His interest expanded over the years to South Korea (he was the Rapporteur on EU-Korea Science and Technology Agreement), China, and the rest of East Asia (he was rapporteur on the EU-ASEAN FTA). He was appointed by the Council of Ministers as the EU’s Chief Election Observer in Indonesia (2004) and Aceh (2006/7).

When he left the European Parliament in 2009, Glyn Ford founded the consulting company Polint, which he still leads today. However, in parallel, he continued his political and academic engagement with the DPRK and the East Asian region. These activities, which have always been conducted on a ‘non-profit’ basis, are now carried out in the framework of Track2Asia.

Thanks to his engagement with the DPRK, he is now considered one of the most pre-eminent European experts on the Korean peninsula in particular, and East Asia in general. A sample of this expertise can be seen in his books “North Korea on the Brink” (Pluto Press,2008 and later translated into Japanese and Korean) and “Talking to North Korea” (Pluto Press,2018).  Glyn Ford is also a Board Member of the North East Asia Economic Forum (NEAEF) and the Pacific Century Institute (PCI), as well as one of the European co-organisers of a number of Korean Global Forum (KGF) events.