Jakob von Weizsäcker

Jakob von Weizsäcker (born 4 March 1970) is a German economist and politician who currently serves as the chief economist of the German Ministry of Finance. Before, he served as the social democratic Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Thuringia, Germany for the 8th European Parliament (2014-2019).

Education

After attending Atlantic College in Wales, he studied at Bonn University and worked for Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste in Poland instead of military service. He completed his university studies in France at ENS Lyon and what is today known as the Paris School of Economics, graduating with a Maîtrise in physics and a Diplôme d'études approfondies in economics.

Professional career

Weizsäcker started work as a research fellow with Jean-Charles Hourcade at CIRED in Paris and then with Hans-Werner Sinn at the Center for Economic Studies in Munich. After stints at a venture capital firm and as a visiting scholar at the MIT Department of economics, he joined the German Ministry for Economic Affairs in 2001 as Private secretary to Siegmar Mosdorf. In 2002, he was recruited by the World Bank in Washington DC as economist. 2005-2010 he was a resident fellow of the think-tank Bruegel in Brussels. With his work on migration policy, he coined the term Blue Card for a European scheme to attract high-skilled immigrants. From 2010 to 2014, he headed a department at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Thuringia.

In the 2014 European elections, Weizsäcker was elected to the European Parliament where he was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. His legislative files included bank structural reform and too-big-to-fail rules for clearing houses (CCPs). He also was a member of the parliament’s delegation for relations with India. In January 2019, he resigned from the European Parliament upon his nomination as chief economist for the German Ministry of Finance.

In 2013, Weizsäcker and Maximilian Steinbeis founded the Glienicker Gruppe, a group of pro-European lawyers, economists and political scientists, together with Henrik Enderlein, Marcel Fratzscher, Clemens Fuest and others.

Other activities

• Business Forum of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Member of the Political Advisory Board (since 2018)
• Leibniz Institute for Financial Research, Member of the Board of Trustees
• Progressives Zentrum, Member of the Circle of Friends

Personal life

Weizsäcker is married, with four children. A member of the prominent Weizsäcker family, he is the son of environmentalist and politician Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, grandson of the physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and grandnephew of former German president Richard von Weizsäcker.