As of 1 January, the esteemed European practitioner
will take charge of Europe’s oldest network of think tanks.
BRUSSELS, 01/01/2021: On the occasion of TEPSA’s Portuguese Pre-Presidency Conference, the TEPSA General Assembly elected Jim Cloos as a successor of Prof. Jaap de Zwaan as TEPSA Secretary-General after a distinguished career in the European institutions.
Jim Cloos is a high-ranking European official of longstanding esteem. Having taken on a key role in drafting the Maastricht Treaty during the Luxembourgish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 1991, Mr. Cloos has an intricate expertise on EU Affairs and the internal functioning of the European institutions. In the 1990s he served at the European Commission, first as Head of the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Agriculture, and subsequently as Head of Cabinet to the President of the European Commission and his G7/8 Sherpa. Mr. Cloos has been a close collaborator of High Representative Javier Solana in shaping the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. For many years he played a key role in preparing European Council meetings. He is retiring from the position as Deputy Director General for General and Institutional Policy at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union.
Europe moves into 2021 in a context of significant challenges, ranging the COVID-19 pandemic to rule of issues in some EU members states and with the building of a new partnership with the United Kingdom. In this context, Jim Cloos is eminently well placed to help forge stronger links between TEPSA researchers from 36 European countries and EU practitioners, and to explain and communicate EU policy-making to the broad public.
On his election to the position of TEPSA Secretary-General, Mr. Cloos commented “I am thrilled to take over the function of SG of TEPSA. TEPSA is not an ordinary think-tank. Thanks to its membership spread across the EU and the neighbourhood, it brings to research on European integration a unique perspective, steeped in Europe’s diversity! It is also ideally suited for communicating about the EU on the ground. Based on my long career as a practitioner, I will help build further bridges between TEPSA and the world of European politics and decision-making.”
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