The Israeli publicist and former diplomat Avi Primor served as Ambassador to the European Union from 1987 to 1993 and was Ambassador to Germany to 1999. After leaving the diplomatic service, he was vice-president of the University of Tel Aviv until 2004. During his time as Ambassador to Germany, Primor rose to national prominence as one of the most important promoters of the German-Israeli dialogue. He has been awarded the Mérite européen award for his contribution to European unification,as well as the Grand Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Since 2010, Avi Primor has served president of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, non-partisan think tank for the study and debate of foreign policy questions, especially those relating to the Israel and the Jewish people. And since 2013 he is Director of the Trilateral program for European Studies at the Tel Aviv University. Primor has published a number of articles on Israel, the Middle East, Iran and Israeli-German relations in newspapers and magazines, including Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), and he is also regularly interviewed as an expert on these issues on radio and television, notably in Germany.