Karel De Gucht

De Gucht became a member of the European Parliament in 1980 and fulfilled this mandate until 1994. In 1989 he was the rapporteur of a landmark Parliamentary Declaration on the Fundamental Rights, leading eventually to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which was later integrated as an essential part of the Treaty of Lisbon.

De Gucht entered the Flemish Parliament after the elections of 1994 and moved to the Belgian Federal Parliament in 2003, where he remained until 2004. In 1999 he was elected party president of the Flemish liberal party (Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten). Although he was elected to the Federal Parliament in the general election on 18 May 2003 and to the European Parliament in the elections of June 2004, he occupied the first seat only very briefly and the second not at all.

He entered the Belgian government on 18 July 2004 as Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs. He served as deputy prime minister in 2008–2009. He was Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE in 2006.[3] He was a Member of the Security Council of the United Nations (2007–08) and Member of the European Council (2004–09).

In July 2009 De Gucht was appointed as the Belgian European Commissioner, in succession of Louis Michel. Like his predecessor, he was in charge of Development and Humanitarian Aid, but from February 2010 onwards, he became Commissioner of Trade in the Barroso II Commission, until 31 October 2014.

He prepared and launched free trade negotiations with the United States, the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). He achieved important trade agreements, among others with South-Korea (2011), Colombia and Peru (2013), Central America, Singapore, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine (2014). In October 2014 he concluded CETA, the free trade agreement with Canada and the first ever agreement with a G7 member. He oversaw the start of trade negotiations with Japan and Vietnam, resumed talks with Mercosur and began investment agreement negotiations with China. He also concluded landmark economic partnership agreements with West Africa (ECOWAS), South Africa (SADC) and Eastern Africa (EAC), covering together 75% of African economy.

De Gucht performed his ultimate duty as a commissioner by signing in Nairobi on 31 October 2014 the agreement with the Eastern African Community (EAC), consisting of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. He also played a key role in the conclusion of a comprehensive trade agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, which was a direct cause of the upheavals in Independence Square and the 2013–14 Ukrainian Crisis.

At the end of his mandate he enjoyed a strong reputation within the European Commission because of the progression in the trade portfolio during his mandate and because of his strong views on European policy questions.[4] At the end of this mandate he decided to leave politics, except on the local level, where he will be the chairman of the local council.[5]

• ArcelorMittal, Member of the Board of Directors (since 2016)[10]
• Proximus, Member of the Board of Directors[11]
• CVC Capital Partners, Member of the European Advisory Board (since 2015)[12]

• Institute for European Studies (IES) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), President[13]