Daniel Gros

Why organisations work with Daniel Gros

• Direct lineage to the euro’s creation. As Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, he worked on the blueprint that became Europe’s monetary union, and still publishes on its unfinished architecture.
• Two decades steering CEPS, Europe’s leading independent economic policy think tank, give him a working map of Brussels, Frankfurt, and national capitals that few outside economists can match.
• Current director of the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, with live research output on EU competitiveness, defense financing, and the middle-technology trap.
• Adviser to the European Parliament and former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board, with standing counsel histories to governments in Greece, the UK, and the US.
• A syndicated Project Syndicate columnist whose positions often move ahead of consensus, useful for boards trying to separate durable shifts from noise.

Biography highlights

• Director, Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University.
• Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), 2000 to 2020.
• Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, European Commission, on the design of the euro.
• Former economist at the International Monetary Fund.
• Adviser to the European Parliament; former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board.
• Co-author of European Monetary Integration (with Niels Thygesen) and Open Issues in European Central Banking (with Lorenzo Bini Smaghi); syndicated columnist for Project Syndicate.

Biography

The euro was designed in the late 1980s inside a committee chaired by Jacques Delors. Daniel Gros was the economic adviser on that committee, one of the technical authors of a currency now used by more than 340 million people. That origin shapes how he reads every European crisis since.

For twenty years he ran the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, the think tank most closely wired into EU institutions. Under his direction CEPS became a first reference for finance ministries, central banks, and the European Parliament on questions of monetary union, enlargement, and financial stability. He now directs the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, where his research agenda has moved to EU competitiveness, defense financing, Chinese industrial policy, and what he calls the middle-technology trap.

His authority rests on two things working together. The first is technical depth: a University of Chicago PhD, a career inside the IMF and European Commission, co-authorship of the standard textbook on European monetary integration. The second is access. He advises the European Parliament, has counselled governments in Greece, the UK, and the US, and sat on the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board.

What he gives a senior audience is the ability to distinguish structural change from cyclical noise in the European economy. His Project Syndicate columns often take positions ahead of the Brussels consensus, which is the useful test of whether a commentator is describing reality or repeating it.

Key speaking topics

• Eurozone economic policy and monetary union
• EU competitiveness and industrial strategy
• European defense financing and fiscal capacity
• Geopolitical economic risk and EU-China relations
• The international role of the euro
• European banking, financial stability, and capital markets
• EU enlargement and the political economy of integration

Ideal for

• Boards and executive committees of European financial institutions, asset managers, and insurers pricing eurozone and sovereign risk.
• CEOs, CFOs, and strategy leads at multinationals reassessing European market exposure against US and Chinese policy shifts.
• Government relations, policy, and public affairs leaders tracking Brussels and Frankfurt decisions that affect capital allocation.
• Investor conferences and economic outlook events briefing senior audiences on EU macro conditions.

Audience outcomes

• A sharper read on where the eurozone’s architecture is still fragile and where it is more resilient than headlines suggest.
• A working view of the EU competitiveness agenda, including industrial policy, defense spending, and the middle-technology trap.
• Clarity on how European responses to Chinese industrial policy and US tariff shifts will reshape capital flows and trade.
• A named set of indicators and policy triggers to watch over the next 12 to 24 months.
• Answers calibrated to senior decision-makers, drawing on direct experience advising parliaments, central banks, and governments.