Two deputy directors-general for trade appointed

The two positions fell vacant in quick succession earlier this year. The Commission has confirmed the appointments will take effect immediately.

The college of European commissioners has today (16 September) approved two appointments to the senior ranks of the Commission’s management, both of them in the department for trade.

In May of this year, the two positions of deputy director-general for trade fell vacant in quick succession, when João Aguiar Machado was named in February as the next director-general for mobility and transport and Peter Balas was appointed in April to head the Commission’s taskforce on Ukraine. Both men left the trade department in May, leaving a gap immediately below Jean-Luc Demarty, who has been director-general for trade since 2011.

In their stead, the Commission has now appointed Mauro Petriccione to Machado’s old job, the position of deputy director-general for services and investment, intellectual property, public procurement, Asia and Latin America, sustainable development, economic partnership agreements – African, Caribbean and Pacific, agri-food and fisheries.

It has appointed Matthew Baldwin as deputy director-general responsible for neighbouring countries, the United States and Canada, the World Trade Organization, legal affairs, trade in goods, trade strategy and analysis, market access and trade defence.

Petriccione joined the Commission in 1987 and has spent his entire career in the trade department. An Italian national, he has represented the Commission in international trade talks, the GATT, the WTO and the OECD, and he was EU negotiator for a number of trade agreements including the accession of Russia and Vietnam to the WTO, and an economic and trade agreement with Canada.

Baldwin was a British civil servant before joining the Commission in 1999 as deputy head of the private office of Pascal Lamy, the then European commissioner for trade. He moved to the department for trade in 2004, headed units on market access and WTO matters, and became director for market access and industry. In 2007-10 he worked in the private office of José Manuel Barroso, the then president of the Commission, working on trade, energy and climate change. Most recently he has been a director for aviation and international transport policy in the department for mobility and transport.

The Commission announced that the appointments would take effect immediately. Petriccione has been acting deputy director-general after the departure of Machado. European Voice’s understanding is that Baldwin is currently working for the transition team of Jonathan Hill, who has been nominated by the UK as a European commissioner and has been allocated responsibility for financial stability, financial services and capital markets. Baldwin is in line to head Hill’s private office during the next Commission, assuming the college is approved by the European Parliament next month.