Jeroen Dijsselbloem, President of the Eurogroup
The Eurogroup President chairs Eurogroup meetings and draws up its work programme.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem
The current Eurogroup President is Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is also the Minister of Finance of the Netherlands.
Eurogroup members elected Mr Dijsselbloem to the post of President on 21 January 2013.
Role and responsibilities
The President draws up a long-term work programme for the Eurogroup and agendas for each meeting.
The President also chairs Eurogroup meetings and presents the outcomes of Eurogroup discussions to both the public and the ministers of EU countries outside the euro area.
In addition, the President represents the Eurogroup in meetings with third parties and in international fora.
Selecting the President of the Eurogroup
Eurogroup members elect a President by a simple majority for a period of two and a half years.
The Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, recognised the Eurogroup as an informal grouping and established the rules for appointing its President.
Biography of Jeroen Dijsselbloem
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, born in Eindhoven on 29 March 1966, lives in Wageningen with his partner and two children.
Education
1985: Secondary school, Eindhoven
1985-1991: Degree in agricultural economics, Wageningen University (majors: business economics, agricultural policy and social and economic history)
1991: Business economics research towards a master’s degree, University College Cork, Ireland
Career
In 1992 Jeroen Dijsselbloem worked as an assistant to the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) Members of the European Parliament in Brussels. He joined the staff of the parliamentary PvdA in The Hague in 1993, where he worked for three years as a policy officer in the area of spatial planning (including the environment, agriculture and nature).
Jeroen Dijsselbloem sat on the Wageningen municipal council from 1994 to 1997.
In 1996, he became an advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries in The Hague, a position he held for two years. He was then appointed deputy head of that ministry’s advisory section, where he remained until 2000.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem was a member of the House of Representatives from 28 March 2000 to 22 May 2002 and from 19 November 2002 until taking up his post as minister. He was the party’s spokesperson on education and youth and covered a broad range of other policy issues. From 25 April 2007 to 22 December 2008 he chaired the parliamentary investigation committee on educational reform.
On 5 November 2012 Jeroen Dijsselbloem was appointed Minister of Finance in the Rutte-Asscher government.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem has been a member of the PvdA since 1985. He became the deputy leader of the PvdA parliamentary party in 2008.