The State of the Union 2018: Speakers’ biographies

László Andor is Senior Fellow at Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and Visiting Professor at the University of Brussels (ULB). He served as EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (2010-2014). He has been a member of the Board of Directors at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2005-2010), representing Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Croatia. Professor Andor holds an MA in Development Economics from the University of Manchester and a PhD in Economics from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has also been advisor to the Hungarian Prime Minister.

Tony Barber is Europe Editor at the Financial Times, where he is a columnist and specialist writer on European political, economic and business news. He has worked at the FT since 1998, including as Brussels Bureau Chief, Rome Bureau Chief and Frankfurt Bureau Chief. From 1990-1997 he was East Europe Editor and Europe Editor at The Independent. He worked as Reuters Foreign Correspondent from 1981-1989. During this time he was based in New York, Washington and Chicago, before moving to Vienna, Warsaw, Moscow, Washington again and Belgrade. Tony Barber was educated at St John’s College, Oxford University.

Leonardo Bassilichi is President of the Chamber of Commerce of Florence. In 1998 he became head of Operations Management of the family business, Bassilichi SpA. Later, in 2012, he was appointed CEO. From 2011-2015 Bassilichi was a member of the international organisation YPO, as well as being a member of the Board of Directors of the Florence Centre for Fashion. Between 2014 and 2015 he was a member of the Chamber Consortium Governing Council for Internationalization. Between 2011-2014 Bassilichi was Vice President of growth policies, industrial relations and security within Confindustria Florence (2011-2014).

Catia Bastioli is Chairwoman of Terna. She is member of key advisory boards at the EU level, including the High-level Panel of the EU Decarbonisation and the Bioeconomy Panel. She is the author of numerous publications and international patents, contributing to an industrial culture based on low environmental impacts, eco-sustainability of production processes and innovation. She was awarded the EU Inventor of the Year 2007; the Giulio Natta Award for Chemistry (2015); the Honoris Causa Degree in Industrial Chemistry by the University of Genoa (2008) and the Honoris Causa Degree in Materials Engineering by the University of Palermo (2016).

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Brando Benifei is a member of the European Parliament. He is a member of the Committee on employment and Social Affairs and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence. In 2009 he was appointed Head of Europe for Young Democrats and at the same time became vice president of the European Community Organization of Socialist Youth (ECOSY). He is also vice-chair of the Youth Intergroup and of the Disability Intergroup. Among his primary interests are the Digital Agenda and technology-related issues, in particular for the impact they have in creating new jobs and thus on youth employment

Thomas Beukers is a Senior Legal Advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the EUI Law Department and an ADEMU researcher. He defended his PhD at the Law faculty of the University of Amsterdam in 2011 and was awarded a cum laude distinction. From 2012 to 2014 he was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow in Law at the EUI. His research interests include the constitutional law of the and the EU’s Economic and Monetary Union. He is an editor of the European Constitutional Law Review.

Federica Bicchi is Associate Professor of International Relations of Europe at the London School of Economics, where she teaches European Foreign Policy. She is also Part-time Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. Professor Bicchi holds a PhD in Political Science from the EUI. Her research interests include the foreign policy of the European Union towards its Southern neighbourhood and the construction of knowledge within the foreign policy system of the EU and within the European External Action Service in particular.

Matteo Biffoni is Mayor of Prato and the migration delegate at the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI). He was elected city councillor in 2004, and again in the 2009 administrative elections. In December 2012 he entered parliament for the , and in 2013 was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He resigned as a Member of Parliament in 2014, to launch his candidacy for mayor of Prato. In October of the same year he was elected president of the . Already responsible for ANCI's immigration and integration policy, he was elected as President of ANCI Toscana in September 2015.

Simona Bonafè is a Member of the European Parliament and belongs to the Socialists and Democrats group. She currently serves on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and is the Parliament’s rapporteur on the EU Circular Economy Package. In addition, Bonafè is a member of the Committee on Economic Affairs and the EP’s delegations for relations with the United States and with the People’s Republic of China. Previously, she was a Member of Parliament in , a local Councillor for the Environment in Scandicci, and a journalist. Bonafè started her political activity in 2002 in the centre-left party “La Margherita”.

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Marco Buti has been Director General for Economic and Financial Affairs at the since December 2008. He was educated at the Universities of Florence and Oxford. Since 1987, when he joined the European Commission, he held various positions including that of economic advisor of the Commission President. He is the Commission Finance Deputy in the G7 and G20. He has been visiting professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the University of Florence and at the European University Institute. He has published extensively on EMU, macroeconomic policies, structural reforms, welfare state, and unemployment.

Jasper Chalcraft is a Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, EUI. He is also a Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Sussex. His current research project is titled, 'Heritages of Dissent: How migrants and minorities negotiate Europe’s plural pasts'. He has a particular interest in cultural studies, social and cultural anthropology and the conservation and Restoration of cultural heritage.

Pilita Clark is an associate editor and business columnist at the Financial Times. She writes a weekly column on modern corporate life, as well as features and other articles. She has worked for the FT since 2003, covering aviation and the environment, and was previously a Washington correspondent for Australian newspapers and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Patricia Clavin is a Fellow in the British Academy and in the Royal Historical Society. She is also a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and an editor for the Oxford History Monographs series, serving on the editorial board Past and Present. She studied at King's College London, obtaining a BA Hons in Modern History and her PhD. She was Reader in Modern History at Keele University before joining Jesus College in October 2003. Dr Clavin has held the British Academy ‘Thank-Offering-to-Britain’ Senior Research Fellowship (2008-2009). In 2015 she was awarded a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust.

Thomas Cooley is Paganelli-Bull Professor of Economics, Emeritus at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, and Professor of Economics in the NYU Faculty of Arts and Science. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Cooley is the former President of the Society for Economic Dynamics. In the corporate sector, he has been a senior advisor and member of the board for several companies. He has authored more than 100 scholarly articles on economics. and statistics and frequently writes opinion pieces for economic and business publications.

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Giancarlo Corsetti is Professor of Macroeconomics at Cambridge University, fellow of Clare College, Cambridge and director of the Cambridge INET Institute. Previously, he taught at the European University Institute and the Universities of Rome III, Yale and Bologna. His contributions range from theoretical and empirical work on fiscal and monetary policy, to analysis of currency and financial crises. He serves as co-editor of the Journal of International Economics, Programme Director at Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, and scientific consultant to the Bank of England and the European Central Bank.

Corina Crețu has been the European Commissioner for Regional Policy since 2014, and a member of the presidency of the Party of European Socialists since 2011. She was an MEP from 2007-2014 and then Vice-president of the European Parliament in 2014. In Romania, she was the Vice-president of the Social Democratic Party of Romania, a Senator, and Spokesperson and Head of public communication of the Romanian President. Before she started her political career, she was a reporter and commentator for several Romanian newspapers. She graduated at the Faculty of Economic Planning and Cybernetics at the Academy of Economic Studies of Bucharest. Alfonso Dastis is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain. Previously, he was Ambassador to the Netherlands (2004-2007) and Permanent Representative of Spain to the European Union (2011-2016). Dastis has been an advisor at Spain’s Permanent Representation to the UN in New York; Director of the Support Unit of the Organising Committee of the Spanish Rotating Presidency of the EU; a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe and Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. He is a specialist in International Law and EU Law.

Renaud Dehousse is President of the EUI. Previously, he was Jean Monnet Professor of European Law and Political Science at Sciences Po, where he founded and directed the Centre for European Studies. He also chaired Sciences Po’s Governing Council 2013-2016. Before moving to Sciences Po, Professor Dehousse held professorships at the EUI and at the University of Pisa. He a scientific advisor to Notre Europe, the centre for research founded by Jacques Delors. Prof. Dehousse has been a member of several working parties on the reform of European institutions established by the European Commission and the French Government.

Jos Delbeke is Senior Adviser at the European Political Strategy Centre. Previously, he was Director-General of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Climate Action. Delbeke has been responsible for developing the EU's international climate change strategy and was the EU's chief negotiator at the UN climate conferences. He has developed EU legislation on cars and fuels, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), effort-sharing, integrated governance, air quality, chemicals and emissions from industrial installations (REACH). He is a guest professor at the KU Leuven and teaches the course International and European environmental policy.

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James Dennison is a Research Fellow in the Migration Policy Centre, EUI. He works in the Observatory of Public Attitudes to Migration on explaining and describing attitudinal formation in Europe. He received a PhD in social and political sciences in 2017 for his thesis ‘Re-thinking Turnout’ and is the author of ‘The Greens in British Politics: Protest, Anti-Austerity and the Divided Left’ (Palgrave, 2016). Previously, he held positions at the University of Oxford and University of Sheffield and worked in both of the British Houses of Parliament and the European Commission. He specialises in quantitative, positivist social science methods.

Mario Draghi has been President of the European Central Bank since 2011. He is Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board and Chair of the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS) at the Bank for International Settlements. Previously he was Governor of the Bank of Italy, Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs International and Director General of the Italian Treasury. Draghi has a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was Professor of Economics at the University of Florence.

Muna Duzdar is a Member of the National Council in Austria, representing the Social Democratic Party. Previously, she was State Secretary for Public Service, Diversity and Digitalisation, Federal Government, a Member of the Vienna State Parliament and member of the Vienna Municipal Council. Duzdar is trained as a lawyer and in 2012, registered at the Austrian Bar Association. She holds a Master’s degree in International Law from the Sorbonne University, Paris and a Master of Laws Degree at the University of Vienna. Duzdar is primarily concerned with foreign policy, digitisation, integration and Austrian people´s advocate institution.

Lars P. Feld is Professor of Economics, in particular Economic Policy, at the Albert- Ludwigs University of Freiburg since 2010, where he is also Director of the Walter Eucken Institute. Feld holds a PhD from the University of St. Gallen and his research interests include Economic Policy, Public Economics, Political Economics and Economic Analysis of Law. He is also a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board to the German Federal Ministry of Finance since 2003, a member of the German Council of Economic Experts since 2011 and a member of the German Fiscal Council since 2013.

Chiara Ferrari is International and Non-Profit Group Director at Ipsos Public Affairs in Italy. Ipsos is a global market research agency committed to corporate social responsibility since its adhesion to the United Nations Global Compact in 2008. Ferrari was the leader of the Pilot Evaluation Package in the EMMA Pilot (the first European Multiple MOOC Aggregator), a 30-month pilot action which has received funding from the European Union's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme. Her main research interests are currently immigration and minorities, ageing, education, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), donations and fundraising.

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Maurizio Ferrera is Professor of Political Science at the University of Milan and President of the Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Sciences (NASP). He has been a Visiting Professor at the EUI, University of California, Berkeley, McGill University, and the London School of Economics. In 2013 he was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for a project on “Reconciling Economic and Social Europe: ideas, values and consensus”. Ferrera has been published widely in English, Italian and French and regularly writes on for Corriere della Sera. His most recent book is Rotta di collisione: Euro contro welfare? (Laterza, 2016).

Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger is Foreign Editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, where he writes about international politics. Before joining the newspaper’s editorial staff in 1986, Frankenberger gained a deep insight into US political decision-making process when he served as an assistant to a US member of Congress. He also held research positions at the Centre for North American Studies in Frankfurt and a Marshall-Fellowship at Harvard University in 1990.

Andrew Geddes is Chair in Migration Studies and Director of the Migration Policy Centre at the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies, EUI. Previously, he was a Head of Department and Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. He was a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow in the Department of Social and Political Sciences, EUI (2011-12). Between 2009-2011, he was a member of the Lead Expert Group appointed by the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor to analyse the relationship between global environmental change and migration. His research focuses on the governance of international migration, with an emphasis on Europe and the EU.

Paolo Gentiloni has been President of the Council of Ministers since December 2016. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from October 2014 to December 2016. A member of the National Founding Committee of the Democratic Party, Mr. Gentiloni was elected Member of Parliament for the first time in 2001 and then re-elected in 2006, 2008, 2013 and 2018. Chairman of the broadcasting Services Watchdog Committee in 2005, he was part of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies from 2013 to 2015. He served as Minister for Communications in Romano Prodi’s government between 2006 and 2008. Jean-Michel Glachant is part-time Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and Director of the Florence School of Regulation, EUI. Glachant worked in the private sector before becoming a full professor at the Sorbonne in 1999. He then became the Director of the Department of Economics, University of Paris-Sud, where he founded the ‘Groupe Réseaux Jean Monnet’ and later the European Erasmus Mundus Master EMIN. He has been an advisor for the European Commission and the French Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE). He is a research partner in institutes at MIT, Cambridge University, University of Leuven and University Paris-Sud.

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Leigh Hancher is Professor of European Law at Tilburg University, part-time Professor at the Florence School of Regulation (EUI) and Director of FSR Energy Union Law. Her research interests include energy market regulation, EU State aids and energy market governance. Her expertise as well as academic research is focused on the government’s role in stimulating the liberalisation of traditionally heavily regulated sectors. She has been a Professor at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, a visiting Professor at the University of Calgary, Head of Legal at the Energy Charter Secretariat, and a member of the Dutch Academic Advisory Council (WRR).

Silja Häusermann is Professor of Political Science at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Her research interests are in comparative politics and comparative political economy. Previously, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Government Department of Harvard University in Cambridge, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Zurich, Max Weber Fellow at the EUI, and Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Konstanz. She has published on comparative welfare state analysis, labour market dualisation, electoral realignment, public opinion and distributive politics in several books and in many academic journals.

Anton Hemerijck is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the EUI. Previously, he was a Senior Researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. Later, he became Associate Professor of Public Administration at the Erasmus University Amsterdam. From 2009-2014 he was Dean of the Faculty of the Social Science at VU Amsterdam. He is one of the founders of the Amsterdam Centre for Contemporary European Studies, where he directed the Scientific Council for Government Policy. From 2012-2014, he acted as a member of the Social Investment Package Expert Group of the European Commission.

Michael D. Higgins has been the President of Ireland since 2011. Previously, he has served at almost every level of public life in Ireland, including as a member of the Irish Senate and as Ireland’s first Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. The first in his family to access higher education, he later lectured in political science and sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and in the United States. Higgins has campaigned for human rights and for the promotion of peace and democracy in Ireland and in many other parts of the world, from Nicaragua and Chile to Cambodia, Iraq and Somalia. He is also a writer and poet.

Ellen M. Immergut is Professor in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the EUI, while on leave as Professor of Comparative Politics at Humboldt University Berlin. Her research interests include the Impact of Electoral and Party Competition on Social Policy in Post-Industrial Societies; Health Politics in Europe; Constitutional Politics, and Pension Politics. Previously, she was Professor of Political Theory at the University of Konstanz and Ford International Career Development Chair and Associate Professor of Public Policy at MIT. She is the Scientific Coordinator for the NORFACE Welfare State Futures Programme.

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Jean-Claude Juncker is President of the European Commission. For almost 20 years he served as Prime Minister of Luxembourg (1995-2013). From 2005-2013, he was also President of the Eurogroup. In 2014, Juncker was elected and ran as the candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP) for the Presidency of the European Commission in the first ever Europe-wide campaign. After the European Elections in May 2014, he was proposed as the candidate for President of the European Commission by the European Council and was elected by the European Parliament on 15 July 2014.

Claire Kilpatrick is Professor of International European and Social Law at the European University Institute and Co-Director of the Academy of European Law. Before coming to the EUI in 2011 she worked at LSE and Cambridge University. Her interests lie mainly in the law and policy construction of Social Europe, especially the EU’s roles. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Industrial Law Programme and the International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations and of the Advisory Boards of the European Journal of Legal Studies and the European Law Journal.

Ivan Krastev is the Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of Trustees of The International Crisis Group and is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. His latest books in English are “After Europe” (UPenn Press, 2017) “Democracy Disrupted. The Global Politics on Protest” (UPenn Press, 2014); “In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don't Trust Our Leaders?” (TED Books, 2013).

Ulrich Krotz is Professor of International Relations and Director of Europe in the World, a project at the European University Institute. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, has taught at Oxford University and Brown University, and held research positions at Princeton University, the EUI and Harvard University. His current research focuses on general international relations and world politics, international security, and various aspects of Europe in world politics. It includes the monograph "Divided We Stand" on the EU's military operations and civilian missions abroad.

Brigid Laffan is Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Global Governance Programme at the European University Institute. Prior to that, she was Professor of European Politics and Vice-President in the School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe) at the University College Dublin. She was the founding director of the Dublin European Institute and member of the Royal Irish Academy. She was awarded several prizes for her research in the field of EU Governance through the years, including the THESEUS Award for outstanding research on European Integration (2012) and the UACES Lifetime Achievement Award (2014).

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Karl-Heinz Lambertz was elected as President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) in 2017 after two and a half years as First Vice-President. He is a member of the Belgian Senate representing the German-Speaking Community. He has held numerous Ministerial posts in the German-speaking Community Government and was its Minister-President from 1999-2014. He was President of Parliament until 2016 before taking the post as Senator. Lambertz has been a CoR member since 2001 and since 2000, he has been a Member of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe in which he is currently Vice- President.

Enrico Letta is President of the Jacques Delors Institute, Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at Sciences Po, and the former Prime Minister of Italy. He became the youngest minister to date when he served as the Italian Minister of European Affairs, before becoming Minister of Industry under the governments of D'Alema and Amato. After acting as a member of the opposition from 2001-2006, Letta rejoined the government as Secretary to the Council of Ministers under Prime Minister Prodi. Following the 2008 general elections, he became Vice-Secretary of the Democratic Party in 2009 and then Prime Minister from 2013-2014.

Miguel Poiares Maduro is Director of the School of Transnational Governance, EUI. Previously, he was Portugal’s Minister for State and Regional Development and Minister Adjunct to the Prime Minister (2013-2015). He was Joint Chair in European Law at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Department of Law, EUI (2009-2013) and Advocate General at the European Court of Justice (2003- 2009). In 2010 he was awarded the Gulkbenkian Science Prize for his work in the field of law and in 2006 he was honoured by the President of the Portuguese Republic with the Order of Sant’Iago da Espada for literary, scientific and artistic merit. Ramon Marimon is Professor in the Department of Economics and Pierre Werner Chair at the EUI, on leave from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). He is Chair of the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and Scientific Coordinator of the Horizon 2020 ‘ADEMU’ project. His research interests include Macroeconomics, Labour Theory, Contract Theory and EMU. He was Co-founder of UPF (1990–1992), Secretary of State in the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (2000–2002), Director of the EUI’s Max Weber Programme (2006–2013), and President of the Society of Economic Dynamics (2012–2015) and of the Spanish Economic Association (2004). Sergio Mattarella has been President of the Republic of Italy since 2015. Previously, he was Italy's Minister of Education from July 1989 to July 1990, Deputy Prime Minister in 1998 and Minister of Defence from December 1999 until the June 2001 elections. In 2011 he was elected Constitutional Judge by the Parliament. He taught parliamentary law at the University of Palermo until 1983, when he took leave of absence upon being elected member of the Chamber of Deputies. Academically, the majority of his research has focussed on constitutional law. Born in 1941, in 1964 he obtained a Law Degree with honours from the Sapienza University of Rome.

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Federica Mogherini is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission. Previously, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy, Head of the Italian delegation to the NATO parliamentary assembly, Member of the Italian Parliament and Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In her current role, she leads the ‘Europe in the World’ project, represents the EU at international forums such as the UN and chairs the Commission’s Group on External Action to deliver a common approach for EU action on the world stage.

Mario Monti is President of . Since 2014 he has been Chairman of the High-level Group on Own Resources of the European Union. He was Prime Minister of Italy (2011-2013) and Minister of Economy and Finance (2011-2012). In 2011 he was appointed Senator for life by the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. He served for ten years as a member of the European Commission, in charge of the Internal Market, Financial Services and Tax Policy (1995-1999), then of Competition (1999-2004). Born in Varese, Italy, in 1943, he graduated from Bocconi University and pursued graduate studies at Yale University.

Dario Nardella is the current mayor of the city of Florence. He holds a Degree in Law and a PhD in Public Law and Environmental Law from the University of Florence. In 2004, he started working for the City Council of Florence and in 2009 was re-elected as Councillor. He has been part of the cabinet of Mayor Matteo Renzi, with responsibility for Economic Development and Sports. In 2012 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. In February 2014, Matteo Renzi, in his last act as mayor, appointed him Deputy-Mayor. Following the vote of confidence to the new government led by Renzi, Nardella was elected the new mayor of Florence in May 2014.

Michaël Neuman is Director of studies and the Coordinator of the Centre de Réflexion sur l’Action et les Savoirs Humanitaires of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF- CRASH), Paris. He holds Masters in Contemporary History and International Relations at the University of Paris-I and joined MSF in 1999, working both on the ground (Balkans, Sudan, Caucasus, West Africa) and in headquarters (New York, Paris as Programmes Manager. He is co-editor of "Humanitarian negotiations Revealed, the MSF experience" (Hurst and Co, 2011) and "Saving lives and staying alive. Humanitarian Security in the Age of Risk Management" (Hurst and Co, 2016).

Heiko Nitzschke works in the Policy Planning Unit of the German Foreign Office. Previously, he served in the Security Council team at the German Mission in New York; as Deputy Head of Mission in Sudan; Political Affairs Officer with the UN Mission in Sudan; and Desk Officer for UN Peacekeeping in Berlin. Before that, he worked at the International Peace Academy (now International Peace Institute) in New York. He is co-editor of 'Profiting from Peace: Managing the Resource Dimension of Armed Conflict' and has published on the political economy of civil war, peacekeeping and Sudan.

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Michael O’Flaherty is the Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). He was Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission until 2013 and, in addition to his work for the UN in the field, was Vice- Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Committee. Before joining FRA, he was a Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Virginia Passalacqua is a Ph.D. researcher in the Law Department of the EUI. She received her LLM from the EUI and the University of Bologna. She is a co-founder of the EUI Refugee Initiative, a researcher-led project with the aim of integrating six asylum seekers into Florence. Her areas of interest are EU law, constitutional law, migration, and citizenship law. Her research focuses on legal mobilisation for migrants’ rights before the Court of Justice of the European Union. In particular, she studies how EU law and procedures can be used by social movements, NGOs, and activist lawyers to improve the situation of migrants in Europe.

Prokopios Pavlopoulos has been President of the Hellenic Republic since 2015. He has had a active political career since the 1970s, when he was Secretary to the first (interim) President of the Republic, Michael Stassinopoulos. In 1996 he was elected Member of Parliament for the State for the New Democracy party, for whom he was later a Parliamentary spokesman. From 2000-2014 he was the Parliamentary representative for Central Athens and from 2004-2009 he served as Minister of the then integrated Ministry of the Interior. Pavlopoulos studied at Paris II University and Athens Law School, where he later became a professor.

Jean Pisani-Ferry holds the Tommaso Padoa Schioppa chair of the EUI and is a professor at Sciences Po Paris and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He was Founding Director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank, where he remains a Mercator Senior Fellow. Previously, he served as CommFissioner- General of France Stratégie, the ideas lab of the French government, and he has held senior roles advising the French government and European Commission on economic issues. He has published widely, on economic policy and European policy issues.

Nicola Pochettino works at the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg. He is currently Head of the Electricity Networks Division within the Energy Department of EIB’s Project Directorate. Prior to joining the EIB, he worked at the International Energy Agency in Paris and in various positions in the financial sector and the energy industry, both in Italy and the UK. Nicola is a CFA charterholder and holds a master of science in nuclear engineering from the Polytechnic of Turin and a master's degree in energy economics and management.

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Lia Quartapelle is an Italian MP and leader of the Democratic Party on the Committee on Foreign and European Affairs, House of Representatives. She is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council and of the Italian board of the European Council on Foreign Relations (EFCR). Previously, she was Research Fellow (Africa) at ISPI and Professor of Development Policy at the University of Pavia. She is President of the Italian chapters within the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA), Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) and Women in International Security network (WIIS).

Enrico Rossi is President of Regione Toscana. Born into a working-class family, he had a profoundly political education. He worked as a journalist and earned a degree in Philosophy at the University of Pisa before becoming mayor of Pontedera, where he strongly fought for preventing the relocation of the factory Piaggio. He was elected as a member of the Regional Council of in 2000 and for ten years was a member of the Tuscan Regional Government as Minister of Health. Rossi was elected President of Tuscany in 2010. He ran for the presidency of Tuscany again in May 2015 and was re-elected with 48% of the votes.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has been President of the Portuguese Republic since 2016. Previously, he was Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, and a member of the Council of State. He was a founding member of the People’s Democratic Party (later the Social Democratic Party) and then its leader from 1996 to 1999. He was a member of the first Portuguese delegation to the European Council and Vice-President of the European People's Party. He is a full professor at the University of Lisbon and founded the Portuguese newspapers "Expresso" and "Semanário".

Lucrezia Reichlin is Professor of Economics at the London Business School, non- Executive Director of UniCredit Banking Group, AGEAS Insurance Group and Eurobank Ergasias SA as well as Chairman and co-founder of Now-Casting Economics ltd. Professor Reichlin holds a PhD in Economics from New York University. She is an expert on time series econometrics, business cycle analysis and monetary policy. She is a Fellow of the econometric society and of the British Academy and in 2016 was awarded the Birgit Grodal Prize by the European Economic Association. Most recently, she was Chair of the Scientific Council at the Bruegel think-tank (2013-2016).

Teresa Ribera is Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Momentum for Change UNFCCC Initiative. She is a member of the Board of the Stockholm Environment Institute, of the World Economic Forum's Global Advisory Council on Climate, and of the SDSN's Global Leadership Council. She holds a diploma in Constitutional Law and Political Science and she was Assistant Professor in Public Law at the University of Madrid. She was Director-General for climate (2004-2008) and Secretary of State for climate change in the Spanish Government (2008-2011).

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Davide Rodogno is Professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, where he was head of the International History Department from 2014 to 2017. Before that, he was Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, RCUK Academic Fellow at the University of St Andrews and Research Professor of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). During 2012, the Kofi Annan Foundation mandated Rodogno to report on the experience of the UN and League of Arab States Joint Special Envoy for Syria. He is currently working on two SNSF-funded projects, on the history of minorities in Western Europe and the Rockefeller Foundation fellows around the world.

Maria João Rodrigues is a Member of the European Parliament, former Minister of Employment in Portugal and current First Vice-President of the Socialists & Democrats Group in charge of interface with the other EU institutions and liaison with the Committees of Economic and Social Affairs. She has held different policy roles within the European institutions, particularly as a special advisor to the European Commission. She was also professor of European economic policies in the European Studies Institute - Université Libre de Bruxelles and in the Lisbon University Institute.

Martin Sandbu has been writing about economics for the Financial Times since 2009, when he joined the paper as Economics Leader Writer. He now writes the FT’s Free Lunch. Before joining the FT, he worked in academia and policy consulting. He has taught and carried out research at Harvard, Columbia and the Wharton School, and has advised governments and NGOs on natural resources and economic development. He is the author of two books, one on business ethics and one on the eurozone, and has degrees from Oxford and Harvard.

Monica Scatasta is Head of Environment, Climate and Social Policy and of the European Investment Bank (EIB)’s Environment, Climate and Social Office (ECSO). She joined EIB in 2003 and, before joining ECSO, was the Head of the Water and Waste Management Division. Scatasta is a specialist with over 20 years of experience in policy advisory and project financing, primarily in water resources management, water services, climate change and disaster risk management. Prior to joining the EIB, Ms Scatasta spent 10 years in Washington DC, where she worked at the World Bank and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Laurent Schmitt is Secretary-General of ENTSO-E, the European Network of Transmission System Operators. Previously, he was the Smart Grid Strategy Leader at GE Grid Solutions. He spent 18 years at Alstom, working his way up from Alstom Hydro and Thermal Plant Controls in North America to become Vice President for Smart Grid Solutions with the responsibility to develop Alstom’s offer on the Smart Grid segment. He contributes to a number of expert advisory taskforces at the European Commission. In 2015, Schmitt was named one of the 40 most influential people in the European Smart Grid by the Metering & Smart Energy International Magazine.

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Maroš Šefčovič is Vice President of the European Commission, in charge of Energy Union. His area of responsibility includes leading the Project Team “Energy Union”, establishing a European Energy Union, working to prevent energy shortages, diversifying sources of energy imports and ensuring a united European voice in negotiations to improve our energy security, helping to mobilize additional investment in power grids, renewable energy installations and other energy infrastructure, improving energy efficiency, especially for buildings; with a binding target of 30% less energy use by 2030 and many more

Michael E. Smith has been Professor of International Relations at the University of Aberdeen since 2010; before that he was a Reader in International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He holds a PhD from the University of California and has been a Fulbright scholar to the EU, a Council for European Studies fellow, and a visiting research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. He has authored multiple books, award-winning journal articles, and over 20 contributions to edited volumes on the topic of European foreign and security policy, as well as an innovative research-focused textbook on international security.

Rolf Strauch is Chief Economist of the European Stability Mechanism Management Board in charge of Economics, Policy Strategy, and Banking at the ESM and EFSF, which he joined in 2010. He is responsible for economic and financial analysis, strategic orientation, and the country monitoring work that the ESM and EFSF undertake. He represents the ESM in European and international fora. Prior to this, Mr Strauch worked at the European Central Bank from 2000–2010 in the Directorate General Economics on fiscal, monetary, and structural policies. Mr Strauch holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Bonn.

Antonio Tajani was elected President of the European Parliament in 2017. He has been a member of the EP since 1994 and was previously part of the Parliament’s Bureau and the Conferences of Presidents. Between 2008 and 2010 he was Vice- President of the European Commission with responsibility for transport, with responsibility for industry and entrepreneurship. Tajani was an officer in the Italian Air Force (1974-1975) as well as a Special Envoy to Lebanon, Soviet Union and Somalia (1983-1987).

Frauke Thies is Executive Director of smartEn, the European business association for digital and decentralised energy solutions (formerly SEDC). By taking an integrated perspective on the interaction of demand and supply, smartEN engages in promoting system efficiency, encourage innovation and diversity, empower energy consumers and drive the decarbonisation of the energy sector. Before joining smartEn in September 2015, Thies held different positions at Greenpeace EU and the European Photovoltaic Industry Association SolarPower Europe. She also worked on secondments in Washington, D.C. and in New Delhi, India.

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Poul M. Thomsen is the Director of the IMF’s European Department. He is currently in charge of the IMF’s programs with Greece and Portugal, and also oversees the work of other country teams, including Iceland, Romania, and Ukraine. He graduated from the University of Copenhagen, where he has also been Teaching Assistant from 1979 to 1982. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Thomsen gained extensive knowledge of the economic and social problems facing the countries in Central and Eastern Europe through multiple assignments in the region, including as the IMF’s Senior Resident Representative and Head of the Fund's Moscow Office.

Nathalie Tocci is Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Honorary Professor at the University of Tübingen and Special Adviser to EU HRVP F. Mogherini, on behalf of whom she wrote the European Global Strategy and is now working on its implementation. She held research positions at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, the Transatlantic Academy, Washington, and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, EUI. Her research interests include European foreign policy, conflict resolution, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. In 2008, she won the Anna Lindh award for the study of European Foreign Policy.

Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation. She is also the Chair of the Board of Governors at the French Development Agency (AFD) and a Professor at Sciences Po, Paris. Before joining the ECF, Tubiana was France’s Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21, and as such a key architect of the landmark Paris Agreement. Following COP21, she was appointed High-Level Champion for climate action. Tubiana has been a Professor and Scientific Director for the International Development and Environmental Studies Master degrees at Sciences Po, and Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University.

Claude Turmes is Member of the European Parliament where his main areas of focus include European energy policy, renewables, energy efficiency, European transport policy and the green economy. Since 1999 he has been a member of the Greens/EFA group and held the position of Vice President of the Green Group of the European Parliament from 2002 to 2014. He is a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). Prior to taking up his mandate in the European Parliament, Mr Turmes was active in Friends of the Earth Luxembourg on issues of climate change, energy and the WTO.

Corinna Unger is Professor of Global and Colonial History (19th and 20th centuries) in the Department of History and Civilization at the EUI. She received her PhD from the University of Freiburg, Germany, was a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, and taught Modern European History at Jacobs University Bremen. Her research focuses on global and international history and on the history of colonialism and decolonisation. Most recently she has been working on the history of development in the 20th century. Her book “International Development: A Postwar History” will be published in September 2018 with Bloomsbury.

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Frank Vandenbroucke is a Belgian academic who served as Belgium’s Minister of Social Security, Employment and Pensions (1999-2004), before becoming Minister for Work, Education and Training in the Flemish Regional Government (2004-2009). He became Minister of State in 2009, and served as President of Belgium's "Commission de réforme des pensions 2020–2040". Since 2009, he has held academic positions at KULeuven, the University of Antwerp, the University of Amsterdam and the College of Europe. His research focuses on the impact of the EU on the development of social and employment policy in the Member States.

Photo: Jeroen Oerlemans

Androulla Vassiliou is President of the EUI's High Council. She was the European Commissioner for Health from 2008-2010 2010 and then, until 2014, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. During this time she was a leading force in the Erasmus + Programme. Before being appointed as a Member of the European Commission, Vassiliou was actively involved in politics in her home country, Cyprus. Vassiliou studied law and international affairs in London and practiced law in Cyprus for 20 years (1968-1988). She is an active campaigner for literacy and information and communication technology in education.

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