Course offered: La Commission européenne en pers/pros-pective: métiers, mutations, réformes (25h)
Mr. Manuel Szapiro is currently Director of the European Commission Representation in Barcelona.
Previously, he served as Deputy Head of Cabinet to European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič. In this role, he played a leading part in EU-UK negotiations (Brexit), the management of the European Commission’s interinstitutional negotiations, strategic programming (coordination of the Commission’s Work Programme), and foresight activities.
From 2014 to 2019, he was a member of Vice-President Šefčovič’s Cabinet when the latter was responsible for the Energy Union. During this period, Manuel Szapiro initiated and led the first European industrial alliances, including the European Battery Alliance and the European Raw Materials Alliance. He also launched the Coal Regions in Transition Initiative and the public-private partnership Breakthrough Energy Europe, a €100 million cleantech investment pilot fund established in cooperation with Bill Gates Ventures.
Manuel Szapiro joined the European Commission in March 2003 as a member of the Task Force on the Future of the Union (European Convention and Treaty Revision), operating under the authority of President Romano Prodi. In 2008, he was appointed Deputy Head of Unit and subsequently Acting Head of Unit (2011-2012) for Institutional Affairs and Better Regulation within the Secretariat-General of the European Commission.
For three years (2009-2011), Manuel also contributed to the establishment of Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Joint Undertaking for ITER, based in Barcelona and now employing more than 400 staff members.
Before joining the European Commission, Manuel Szapiro worked as a Senior Lecturer at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht and as an International Adviser to BusinessEurope in Brussels (2000-2002).
He holds postgraduate degrees in Economics, Finance and Energy (DESS, Paris Dauphine University), Politics (Master’s degree from Sciences Po Paris), and European Affairs, Policy and Administration (MA in European Policy and Administration, graduating top of the Leonardo da Vinci class).
A former Academic Assistant at the College of Europe in Bruges, he has also been a professor there since 2006. In addition, he served for nearly ten years as Lecturer and Director of Studies at Sciences Po Paris.
He is the author of a reference work on the European Commission (John Harper Publishing, London, 2013) and has published more recent articles on European institutions, geopolitics, and strategic autonomy.