Blog post

EU Olympic team Is there strength in numbers?

Publishing date: 25 August 2008
Authors: Jakob von Weizsäcker

While 27 EU national teams won as many gold medals as China and the US combined, Jakob von Weizsäcker argues that a joint EU team might have won even more medals. Perhaps it is precisely because the benefits of ’joint external representation" can be counter-intuitive that member states are finding it difficult to team up more effectively in organisations such as the IMF, the UN and NATO?

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About the authors

Jakob von Weizsäcker

Jakob von Weizsäcker heads the department for economic policy and tourism at the Thuringian Economics Ministry in Erfurt and is a non-resident fellow at Bruegel where he was resident fellow form 2005 to 2010.

He previously worked at the World Bank in Washington (2002-2005) where he was country economist for Tajikistan and the Federal Economics Ministry in Berlin (2001-2002) where he headed the office of a junior minister. Before that, he worked for Vesta, a venture capital firm, and held research positions at the Center for Economic Studies in Munich and CIRED in Paris.