Stefaan De Rynck
Principal Advisor on Maritime Affairs and Fisheries
European Commission
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About
Stefaan De Rynck is the Principal Advisor to the Director-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in the European Commission. His focus is the ocean economy, ocean science and maritime security. From 2021 until 2024, he was the Representative of the European Commission in Belgium, creating a bridge between the work of the European Union's executive and Belgian politics and society. Previously, he worked as Senior Adviser to Michel Barnier when he was the EU Chief Negotiator for Brexit (2016-2021). De Rynck published a book in 2023 on those historic negotiations (“Inside the Deal. How the EU got Brexit done”).
His experience in EU affairs covers sustainable urban development, financial service and banking regulation, economic integration in the single market, and transport policy. De Rynck was instrumental in the creation of the EU's banking union in 2013, which gave the European Central Bank supervision powers over EU banks as one of the policy changes to manage the sovereign debt and Euro-crisis. De Rynck worked on various reforms of the EU Treaties and served as spokesperson and political advisor for Members of the European Commission. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven on EU policies and public governance. He has regularly appeared in various media on EU affairs and has done so as part of crisis communication.
Related Publications
Beer and Brexit with Stefaan De Rynck, adviser to Michel Barnier