Prof. Dr. Klaus Gretschmann ... BIOGRAPHY

Professor Dr. Klaus Gretschmann is a former (2001-2011) Director General of the EU Council of Ministers in Brussels with responsibilities for Competitiveness, the Single Market, Industrial Policy, Research, Transport and Energy

As of 1998 and after an academic career, he served as Director General for Economics and Finance in the German Prime Minister’s Office and as the PM’s Personal Representative for the World Economic Summits. He prepared the G8 summits of Cologne and Okinawa and the EU summits of Lisbon, Köln, Berlin, Helsinki und Nice. In Brussels, he was involved for many years in preparing the regular meetings of EU Heads of States and Governments.

After his studies of Economics at the universities of Cologne (PhD in 1980), Vienna und Rom, he taught General Economics, Public Finance and International Political Economy in Cologne (D), Maastricht (NL) and at the University of Technology in Aix-la-Chapelle (D). He was a Jean-Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence (IT), a Visiting Scholar at the Johns-Hopkins University in Washington, DC (USA) and a Research Professor at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at Bielefeld University (D). He worked as an adviser for IMF, OECD, World Bank and helped the Austrian and Finnish Central Bank facilitate the EU accession of their countries. He was involved in the formation of and political consultancy to senior civil servants, politicians and other executive audiences from Latin-America, ASEAN, China as well as from EU institutions and Member States.

Professor Gretschmann has published more than 80 academic articles and books in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Japanese about EU integration, the European economy, Public Economics, the Monetary Union, Competitiveness and Regulation. He is a member of the European Academy of the Sciences and Arts and has been awarded the French Order "Commandeur de la légion d’honneur" and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.