Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko (Ukrainian: Петро Олексійович Порошенко; born September 26, 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician (former Minister for Foreign Affair) sometimes cited as one of the most influential people in Ukrainian politics.

Poroshenko heads the Council of Ukraine's National Bank and is since 23 March 2012 Minister of Trade and Economic Development of Ukraine.

Petro Poroshenko was in born in the city of Bolhrad, Odessa Oblast, in Ukraine. In 1989, he graduated with a degree in economics from the faculty of international relations and international law (subsequently Institute of International Relations) of the Kiev State University.

After graduation, Poroshenko started his own business selling cacao beans. In 1990s, he acquired control over several confectionery enterprises. Subsequently, he united his holdings in that indutstry into Roshen group, the largest confectionery manufacturer in Ukraine. The fortunes he made in the chocolate industry earned him a nickname a Chocolate King.

Martin Schulz (born on 20 December 1955 in Hehlrath) is a German politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, since 2004 leader of the Socialists in the European Parliament (formerly called the Party of European Socialists group and since 2009 called the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats). Martin Schulz has a secondary level of education, he attended high school Heilig Geist Gymnasium in Würselen. He is the current President of the European Parliament.

After four years at primary school, from 1962 to 1966, Schulz attended the Heilig-Geist (Holy Spirit) grammar school in Broich (now Würselen), a district of the town of Broichweiden, for nine years, leaving without his Abitur (A-levels). From 1975 to 1976 he then trained to be a bookseller .

Over the next five years he worked for a number of publishing houses and bookshops, and in 1982 he opened his own bookshop in Würselen, which he ran until 1994.

Besides German, he speaks French and English and understands Dutch.

Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, PC (born 20 March 1956) is a British Labour politician who in 2009 became the European Union's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Under the Treaty of Lisbon this post is combined with the post of Vice-President of the European Commission.

Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer (Baroness Ashton of Upholland) by the Labour Government under which she took on a ministerial position (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State) in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001, and subsequently in the Department for Constitutional Affairs and Ministry of Justice. She became a Privy Councillor PC in May 2006.

Catherine Ashton was appointed Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Queen's Privy Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. As well as Leader of the Lords, she held responsibility in the House of Lords for equalities issues, and she was instrumental in steering the EU's Treaty of Lisbon through the UK's upper chamber. In 2008, she succeeded Peter Mandelson as Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.