EU Competitiveness Summit

Nathalie Berger is Director for Competitiveness Coordination, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs (GROW), where she leads strategic work on competitiveness and public investment, public procurement and Intellectual Property rights.

Before joining DG GROW in 2025, she held senior roles in DG REFORM and FISMA covering areas such as industrial ecosystems, post-crisis financial regulation, and structural reforms. Before joining the Commission, she worked as a legal adviser, consultant, and academic specialising in European law and political science. Nathalie Berger holds a Ph.D. in Public law (European law) and a B.A. in Political Sciences, Robert Schuman University.

Dr. Paul de Bijl is Chief Economist at ACM (Authority for Consumers and Markets, the Netherlands). With Nicolai van Gorp and Gelijn Werner, he wrote the book ‘Handboek Platformeconomie Beleid en strategie voor de digitale samenleving’ (Koninklijke Boom uitgevers, 2023), now under contract with Cambridge University Press for an English translation. With Martin Peitz, he wrote the book ‘Regulation and Entry into Telecommunications Markets’ (Cambridge University Press, 2002; Chinese translation 2006). Paul is a senior member of TILEC (Tilburg University).

Jakob Greiner joined Deutsche Telekom in 2015. He is leading the group’s overall engagement towards the European institutions, international organisations, and trade associations. Prior to that, Jakob worked as legal counsel for Apple in Germany and as political advisor to a Member of the European Parliament. Jakob is a qualified German lawyer; he holds a law degree from Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich and a PhD in European institutional law from the University of Bayreuth.

Tomas Jakimavicius is Director of European Government Affairs within Microsoft’s Corporate, External and Legal Affairs (CELA) group. Based in Brussels, he focuses on Digital Infrastructure, Cloud, Quantum and Industrial regulatory policies impacting Microsoft and its customers’ use of and access to Microsoft’s products and services. Tomas has over 15 years of a wide-ranging senior level experience in both private and public sectors. In his career, he held leadership and advisory positions in trade associations and private sector companies and served as a diplomat representing Lithuania on digital & tech policies at the Council of the European Union. He holds an MSc in Leadership & International Relations from Boston University and an MSc in Enterprise Information Systems from the University of Westminster.

Prof. Pierre Larouche holds the chair of Law and Innovation at Université de Montréal, where he also directs the PhD programme on Innovation, Science, Technology and Law.

A graduate of McGill University, Bonn University and Maastricht University and a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada, Pierre Larouche was Professor of Competition Law at Tilburg University (Netherlands) from 2002 to 2017. There he founded and directed the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC), one of the largest research centres on economic governance. He also conceived and launched the Bachelor Global Law, an innovative law degree inspired by his meta-comparative and inter-disciplinary method. In his capacity as Associate Dean, he led the LL.B. reform at Université de Montréal. Pierre Larouche also taught at the College of Europe (Bruges) (2004-2016), and he has been a guest professor or scholar at McGill University (2002), National University of Singapore (2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013), Northwestern University (2009-2010, 2016-2017), Sciences Po (2012), the University of Pennsylvania (2015) and the Inter-Disciplinary Center (IDC, 2016).

Pierre Larouche’s research centers around economic governance, and in particular how law and regulation struggle to deal with complex phenomena such as innovation. An expert in competition law and civil liability, his works have been cited by the European Court of Justice and the UK Supreme Court, and they have influenced EU policy on electronic communications, competition and standardisation.

Géraldine Mahieu is Deputy Director-General in ECFIN, responsible for the Coordination of Economic Policies of Member States. Before as Director in DG ECFIN, she was in charge of the Directorate B “Investment, growth and structural reforms” with the mission to strengthen the analytical, policy-formulation and policy-implementation capacity of the European Commission. She has been in charge of the design and negotiations of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, adopted in February 2021 and responsible for its horizontal implementation within DG ECFIN. Her mandate as Director also included the implementation of the macroeconomic imbalance procedure and the development of macroeconomic models used for economic and fiscal surveillance. Before that, she was head of unit in DG REFORM, in charge of providing technical support in the areas of labour market, health care, education and other social issues to EU Member States. Before joining DG REFORM, she was the European Commission’s deputy mission chief on the Cypriot adjustment program. She also previously held the position of Senior Economist in the International Monetary Fund and holds a PhD in Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain.

Antonio Manganelli is professor of Competition Law and Policy at the University of Siena, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Law and Economics.

He previously worked at the University of Rome LUMSA as a professor of Antitrust and Regulation, and at the European University Institute, where he was academic coordinator of the Florence School of Regulation.

Antonio has also served in various public institutions in Europe, including the Italian Ministry of Economic Development as Deputy Head of Cabinet, the OECD as a national expert, the Italian Regulator for Telecom, Media and Postal Services (AGCOM), the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the Office of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), and the Research Office at the Italian Central Bank.

As the CERRE Director of Research, Zach Meyers has a wide remit, including managing our cross-sectoral programmes and projects.

Previously the assistant director of the Centre on European Reform, Zach Meyers has a recognised expertise in economic regulation and network industries such as telecoms, energy, payments, financial services and airports. In addition to advising in the private sector, with more than ten years’ experience as a competition and regulatory lawyer, he has consulted to several governments, regulators and multilateral institutions on competition reforms in regulated sectors. He is also a regular contributor to media.

Zach holds a BA, LLB and a Master of Public & International Law from the University of Melbourne.

Dave O’Connell is responsible for ComReg’s strategy, economics, and research functions, and is closely following the changing regulatory policy environment in Europe and Ireland.

An economist of 25 years’ experience, he has led major reviews by ComReg of telephony and wholesale broadband markets. Prior to joining ComReg in 2017, he spent 12 years with the CCPC, Ireland’s national competition authority, where he focussed on abuse of dominance cases and anti-competitive vertical agreements. Dave started his career as a policy analyst with Ireland’s incumbent gas network operator in the early stages of market liberalisation.

Dave holds master’s degrees in comparative politics, economic policy, and industrial economics from University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, and the University of East Anglia, and a postgraduate diploma in EU competition law from King’s College London.

Ben Schroeter is the Director for Economic Policy & Strategic Engagement and a Member of the Extended Leadership Team at Booking.com. His team leads the global public policy work on competition and consumer issues, taxation, data, privacy, AI, and short term rentals. Before joining Booking.com, Ben spent extensive time in consulting and worked as a policy advisor for the German government. An economist by training, Ben holds a Master in Competition Economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and a Master in Competition Law from King’s College, London. 

Alexandre de Streel is CERRE Academic Director, professor of European law at the University of Namur and visiting professor at the College of Europe (Bruges) and SciencesPo Paris. He sits on the scientific committees of the Knight-Georgetown Institute (US), the European University Institute-Centre for a Digital Society (Italy), and the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (Germany).

His main research areas are regulation and competition policy in the digital economy (telecommunications, platforms, and data) as well as the legal issues raised by the developments of artificial intelligence. He regularly advises the European Union and international organisations on digital regulation.

Previously, Alexandre held visiting positions at New York University Law School, the European University Institute in Florence, Panthéon-Assas (Singapore campus), Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, and the University of Louvain. He also worked for the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, the Belgian Permanent Representation to the European Union, and the European Commission. He has also been the chair of the expert group on the online platform economy, advising the European Commission.

Cláudio Teixeira is Head of Digital Policy of BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation. BEUC is the Consumer Voice in Europe representing 42 national organisations in 31 countries. Since 2021, Cláudio has led BEUC’s work on Digital Services, Artificial Intelligence, Telecommunications and Data Protection. Prior to joining BEUC, Cláudio served as Junior Legal Attaché at the Permanent Representation of Portugal to the EU during the Portuguese Council Presidency of 2021. Cláudio holds a Bachelor, Master of Laws from the University of Coimbra and an LL.M. in EU Law from the College of Europe in Bruges.

Risto Uuk is the Head of European Policy and Research at the Future of Life Institute, where he contributed to shaping the general-purpose AI and systemic risk provisions of the EU AI Act. He is a PhD researcher at KU Leuven, a member of Estonia’s government AI advisory board under the Prime Minister, and co-author of The AI Endgame (Wiley, forthcoming). He also leads the EU AI Act Newsletter, which has over 50,000 subscribers.