Andreas Schwarz

Head of Cabinet, Startups, Innovation and Research at European Commission

Speaker

Andreas Schwarz is the Head of Cabinet of Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva (Startsups, Research and Innovation) since December 2024. He was previously Deputy Director-General of the European AntiFraud Office (OLAF) for almost two years. Dr Schwarz has been serving the EU for over two decades. Between 2018 and 2022, he was Director for Revenue and Multiannual financial framework in the Directorate-General for Budget, where he formerly worked as Head of Unit for MFF and economic and budgetary analysis for almost three years. He has a broad experience in various Cabinets of the European Commission. Between 2014 and 2016, he was Deputy Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva (Budget, OLAF and Human Resources). He assumed the same role in the Cabinet of Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski (Budget and Financial Programming), from 2010 to 2014, in the team in charge of the negotiations for the multi-annual financial framework. Between 2007 and 2010, he was Member of the Cabinet of VicePresident Günter Verheugen (Enterprise and Industry), where he was responsible for the Lisbon Strategy, International Trade, European Raw Material Policy, regulatory co-operation with Asia as well as ICT. He started his career in the European Commission as Team coordinator in DG Trade, from 2005 to 2007, and Policy Officer in DG Development from 2003 to 2005. Before joining the Commission in 2003, he worked as an economist for the German Association for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), being responsible for economic policy in South-East Europe for two years. A German national, he holds a degree in information and communication technologies from the Union College of Schenectady (USA) and in economics with specialisation in international economics from the University of Bamberg (Germany). He received his doctorate in Economics at the University of Potsdam