COMMISSIONER Carlos Moedas Research, science and innovation Country Portugal Born Beja, 10 August 1970 Political affiliation EPP Twitter @Moedas As a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs, Carlos Moedas knows how to sell. That skill was evident in September 2014 during his hearing to become European commissioner for research, science and innovation, when the Portuguese politician sold a European Union narrative to die for. Moedas opened the session with an emotive account of his European trajectory: from his childhood in a poor region transformed as a result of EU solidarity funds to his wedding in Paris and the birth of two of his three children in London. He spoke in Portuguese, English and French, which he learnt as one of the first Portuguese students to undertake an Erasmus exchange, which in his case took him to Paris. That emblematic European path through life earned Moedas warm applause at the end of the hearing. The only real naysayers seemed to be Portuguese MEPs from the left and hardleft, who denounced him in harsh terms. They recalled his role in implementing the tough austerity conditions attached to the €78 billion bailout given to Portugal in 2011. Indeed, at the time Moedas was the minister in Pedro Passos Coelho’s centreright government with responsibility for negotiating and implementing the bailout. But while that was seen as a blackmark against his name by some politicians, he presented the experience as good preparation for managing and administering the EU’s research budget, which totals some €80bn for 201420. The European <strong>Commission</strong> of president JeanClaude Juncker has said that the money must go further than it has in the past, in particular by making more loans and investments rather than allocating outright grants. The commissioner must also ensure that the EU’s money goes to the right projects to kickstart a European economy that is increasingly falling behind in terms of innovation and research. Moedas appears remarkably wellequipped to tackle both of those points. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and studied engineering at the prestigious French university École Nationale des Ponts 44 et Chaussées. He has firsthand experience of complex financial engineering, having worked at Goldman Sachs and for Deutsche Bank, where he helped create Eurohypo, a €200bn real estate monster. He also set up a ‘business angel’ fund in Portugal to invest in startups. Moedas, the son of a communist journalist and a seamstress, came to politics late via António Borges, a Goldman Sachs vicepresident who was wellconnected in Portugal’s centreright Social Democrat Party. In 2010, Moedas became chief economic adviser to Passos Coelho, at the time the new leader of Portugal’s centreright opposition. Passos Coelho, a former youth president, management consultant and an archfreemarketeer, was elected the following year. Moedas played a crucial role in implementing the international bailout that the new government negotiated. Portugal broke up cosy oligopolies in the telecoms and energy sectors and introduced labour reforms that helped boost exports. But it also privatised some health services, which CV 2011-14 Secretary of state to the prime minister 2011 Member of parliament 2010-11 Senior economic adviser to the Social Democratic Party 2008-11 Founded and worked at Crimson Investment Management 2004-08 Managing director and board member of Aguirre Newman 2002-04 Consultant, Deutsche Bank and Eurohypo Investment Bank 2000-02 Investment banking associate, Goldman Sachs 1998-2000 MBA, Harvard Business School 1993-98 Engineer and project manager, Suez Group 1988-93 Degree in civil engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa proved controversial, and failed to reduce an unemployment rate that has hovered around 15% since the 2008 crisis. Despite the huge pressure on the <strong>Commission</strong> to boost growth in the EU, Moedas’s current job is unlikely to prove as controversial as his last. Cabinet Head of cabinet António Vicente Deputy head of cabinet Giulia Del Brenna Cabinet members Maria Da Graça Carvahlo Vygandas Jankunas Alfredo Sousa José Mendes Bota Eveline Lecoq António Vicente, head of cabinet, worked as chief of staff to Moedas when he was Portugal’s secretary of state in 2011-14. Moedas’s deputy head of cabinet, Giulia Del Brenna, an Italian, has been working for the European <strong>Commission</strong> since 1996. Her experience has been mainly in pharmaceuticals. An interesting addition to the team is former centre-left MEP Maria da Graça Carvalho (2009-14) who was a member of the European Parliament’s committee on industry, research and energy. She was a minister for science and higher education twice (2002-04, when José Manuel Barroso was Portugal’s prime minister, and 2004-05) but will now work as Moedas’s senior adviser.
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