Alexandr "Saša" Vondra (born 17 August 1961) is a Czech politician, who currently serves as the Senator from Litoměřice and served on various ministerial positions from 2006 till 2012. Until the november 2012 he was also a Deputy Chairman of the Civic Democratic Party.
Vondra was the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic from 2006 to 2007 (in the first administration of Mirek Topolánek). On January 9, 2007, during the new government reshuffle, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs (in the second cabinet of Mirek Topolánek), the first to hold this office. In administration of Petr Nečas he assumed position of nation's Minister of Defence. He was the most vocal proponent of building part of US missile defense system in Brdy, Czech Republic.
He was born in Prague. He graduated in geography from Charles University in Prague in 1984, receiving a Doctor in Natural Sciences degree one year later. In the mid-1980s he was a dissident and Charter 77 signatory. After organizing a demonstration in January 1989, Vondra was imprisoned for two months. In November 1989, while the Velvet Revolution was underway, he co-founded the Civic Forum.
In 1990-1992, Vondra was foreign policy advisor to President Václav Havel. When Havel stepped down from his office during dissolution of Czechoslovakia and at the same time independent Czech foreign service began to be formed, Vondra became Czech Republic's First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in August 1992, responsible i. a. for negotiating the division of Czechoslovak diplomacy. In 1996 he was a chief negotiator for the Czech-German Declaration on the Mutual Relations and their Future Development. In March 1997 Vondra left to become the Czech Ambassador to the United States, staying there until July 2001. From March 2001 to January 2003, Vondra was the Czech Government Commissioner responsible for preparation of 2002 Prague summit of the NATO. From January to July 2003 Vondra was a Deputy Foreign Minister.
He became an ODS member only after his ministerial appointment and the victory in Senate elections in October 2006. He is generally perceived as pro-United States and wary of European integration though less than ODS Euroskeptic hardliners, and has good connections to Havel (his announced return to politics in spring 2006 was taken as a sign of ODS trying to appease the political centre).
Vondra was mentioned as a possible nominee to serve as European commissioner in 2009.
He participated at the international conference European Conscience and Communism, which took place under his patronage at the Czech Senate in Prague in June 2008.
He is married and has 3 children.