Mikuláš Dzurinda  Mikuláš Dzurinda (; born 4 February 1956) is a Slovak politician who was Prime Minister of Slovakia from 30 October 1998 to 4 July 2006. He is the founder and leader of the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK) and then the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union. From 2002 to 2006, his party formed a coalition government with the Christian Democratic Movement, the Alliance of the New Citizen and the Party of the Hungarian Coalition. Mikuláš Dzurinda's 2nd government was labelled as a reformist one, pro-market and most effective one in economic matters in Slovakia since 1993. Carried out reforms included flat tax 19%, pension reform (second pillar), education financing reform (except colleges and universities). During his term Slovakia joined both the European Union and NATO. Dzurinda later served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Prime Minister Iveta Radičová's coalition government from 2010 to 2012. On 3 December 2013, Dzurinda was elected as President of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, the think-tank of the European People's Party. Dzurinda was born on 4 February 1956 in the eastern Slovak village of Spišský Štvrtok. He graduated from the College of Transport and Communications in Žilina in 1979. In 1988, he completed his post-graduate scientific research there and was awarded with a Candidate of Sciences (CSc.) degree. He worked for the Transport Research Institute (VÚD) in Žilina as an economic analyst (1979–1988). Later he was the director of an information technology section within the regional directorate of the Czechoslovak Railways (ČSD) in Bratislava (1988–1990). Mikuláš Dzurinda is married and has two daughters. He speaks Slovak, Czech, English and French. Dzurinda entered Slovak politics as one of the founding members of the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), a conservative political party officially constituted in 1990. The first democratic general election in Czechoslovakia was held in 1990, and he was appointed Deputy Minister of Transportation and Posts of the Slovak Government in 1991. In 1992 he became a member of the Slovak parliament (National Council of the Slovak Republic, and worked as a member of the Committee for Budget and Finance. At the time of the split of Czechoslovakia and the establishment of an independent Slovakia (1993), he was KDH Deputy Chairman responsible for economy.