Alexander Italianer

Alexander Italianer (1956) is a European civil servant and has been the Secretary-General of the European Commission since 2015.

Alexander Italianer was born in the Netherlands and completed his high school in Leiden. He graduated on econometrics at the University of Groningen in 1980, and received his PhD in economics at the same university in 1986. Between 1980 and 1985 he was an assistant at the Catholic University of Leuven. In 1985 he became a civil servant at the European Commission; first as an advisor, then as head of the administrative unit of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. He worked in the Cabinet of Commission President Jacques Santer during the Santer Commission (1995–1999) and became a Cabinet Head under Günter Verheugen (Enlargement). In 2002, he was promoted to Director of the Directorate-General Economic and Financial Affairs. Subsequent positions include Cabinet Head of Commissioner Pavel Telička, Deputy Cabinet Head of President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso (2004 until 2006) and Deputy Secretary-General (2006 until 2010). After being the Director-General of the Directorate-General for Competition from 2010 until 2015, he has been the Secretary-General of the European Commission since 1 September 2015.

Italianer published more than 50 articles and 3 books about the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union, Integration economics, labour, energy, macroeconomics and international trade.

Books and monographies

• Alexander Italianer, Theory and Practice of International Trade Linkage Models. Springer 1986.
• Michel Catinat, Eric Donni and Alexander Italianer, The completion of the internal market : results of macroeconomic model simulations. European Commission 1988.
• Alexander Italianer and M. Vanheukelen, De voltooiing van de Europese interne markt in een mondiale context. KULeuven, 1989.
• Peter Bekx, Anne Bucher and Alexander Italianer, The QUEST Model (version 1988). European Commission, 1989.
• Alexander Italianer, 1992, Hype Or Hope: a Review. Europese Commissie 1990.
• Michael Emerson, Daniel Gros, Alexander Italianer et al., Marché unique, monnaie unique. Economica 1991.
• Michael Emerson, Daniel Gros, Alexander Italianer et al., One Market, One Money. An Evaluation of the Potential Benefits and Costs of Forming an Economic and Monetary Union. Oxford University Press, 1992.