Behgjet Pacolli

Behgjet Isa Pacolli (born 30 August 1951) is a Kosovar Albanian politician and businessman who served as the first deputy prime minister of Kosovo and minister of foreign affairs from 2017 to 2019 under the Ramush Haradinaj government.

After receiving his bachelor's degree from the Hamburg Institute of Foreign Trade in 1974, he completed his military service in the Yugoslav army, and soon after joined an Austrian company, for which he worked as a sales representative for ex-Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland and Russia.

Two years later, he moved to Switzerland and joined a Swiss company he had gotten to know in Moscow.

Pacolli went to graduate school at the Mösinger Zurich Institute, where he received his master's degree in marketing and management.

He speaks various foreign languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Serbian.

In 1974, Behgjet Pacolli started his career as a foreign language correspondent and deputy director for development at the Textile Enterprise in Gjilan.

He held this position until 1975 when he once again left Kosovo to move to the West to pursue career opportunities.

From 1976 to 1980, Behgjet Pacolli held important management positions in several companies, such as commercial director for regional development of the company Peter Zimmer in Kufstein, Austria, commercial director of Interplastica Project Engineering in Morbio Inf., Switzerland, and afterwards he was named general director at the same company (Interplastica).

In the fall of 1990, he founded Mabetex Project Management, a construction company based in Lugano, Switzerland, which has developed into a large business group now called the Mabetex Group, with interests in construction, banking, insurance, hospital, media, design, etc. From 1992 until 1999, Pacolli's Mabetex worked on several projects in Russia during the Yeltsin era.

The firm renovated the White House in Moscow, the State Duma Building, and the Kremlin.

Pacolli was later accused of having bribed Yeltsin because he had guaranteed credit cards to the Yeltsin family.

At the end of the 1990s, during the Kosovo War, Pacolli organised humanitarian aid and donated money to relief.

He is Kosovo Albanian by ethnicity but has Swiss citizenship as well (which he received in 1992).

In early 1999, Swiss authorities opened an investigation and on 22 January 1999 searched the Mabetex office in Lugano, but the federal prosecutor's office dismissed the case against Pacolli in March 1999, as no incriminating evidence was found, partially due to a lack of cooperation from the Russian investigation of Pavel Borodin, the former Head of the Presidential Property Management Department of the Russian Federation.

In 1999, he established the Foundation for the Organisation and Reconstruction of Kosovo (FORK) in Lugano.

Later, Pacolli began business activities in Kazakhstan, where he worked with Mabetex in constructing new buildings in Astana.

Pacolli's commitment to improving the livelihood in his homeland continued after the Kosovo War ended.

In 2005 he created the lobbying company "The New Kosovo Alliance", through which he lobbied exclusively for the creation of the country of Kosovo.

During this time, Pacolli collaborated with many important figures in world politics, especially American leaders, such as Frank Carlucci, Morton Abramovitz, S. Waterman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Janusz Bugajski, Henry Kissinger, and many others.

For four years, he was also a member of the board of trustees of the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS), in the Committee led by Henry Kissinger, during which time he continued his lobbying efforts towards creating the appropriate conditions for declaring Kosovo an independent country.

On 17 March 2006, The New Kosovo Alliance changed its function and transformed into a political party.

The New Kosovo Alliance's lobbying mission, was considered fulfilled by Pacolli and other members of the organization, at the time when US President Bush during his visit to Tirana in June 2007, stated, "Kosovo must be a country, an independent republic, now".

Pacolli was one of the signatories of the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence.

He is the major shareholder of Mabetex Group, a Swiss-based construction and civil engineering company.

Pacolli is also the president of the third biggest political party in Kosovo, the New Kosovo Alliance.

He is believed to be the world's richest ethnic Albanian.

Pacolli has also acted as a mediator in hostage recovery situations.

Pacolli is the son of Isa and Nazmije, the second of ten children.

He completed his primary education in Marec and high school in Pristina.

Since Kosovo declared independence in February 2008, Pacolli has been working to convince other countries to officially recognize Kosovo as an independent country.

Pacolli has been continuing his lobbying activities all around the world, where he has met senior leaders of world countries in an attempt to convince them to recognize Kosovo's independence.

In the 2007 elections, AKR became the third-strongest party by votes and led the parliamentary opposition in Kosovo, giving its contribution to the declaration of Kosovo's independence on February 17th, 2008.

During this period, although in opposition, Behgjet Pacolli continued to work towards achieving international recognition of Kosovo's independence.

Pacolli became a deputy in the Assembly of Kosovo and a member of the Committee for Budget and Finance.

With Pacolli's rise in politics, he was seen as a great asset not only to Kosovo but to its development.

Pacolli is a former president of Kosovo, and served as the first deputy prime minister of Kosovo between 2011 and 2014.

On 22 February 2011, Behgjet Pacolli was elected the 3rd president of the Republic of Kosovo.

During the first days in his new role, he visited Mitrovica and crossed into Serb-majority North Kosovo to reaffirm Kosovo's authority and sovereignty in the area.

Pacolli went on two out-of-the-country visits as the president of Kosovo, visiting Albania and Macedonia.

He left the role (though without formally resigning) on 4 April 2011, after the Constitutional Court of Kosovo had ruled that his election procedure had been irregular.