Santina Bertulessi

Santina Bertulessi is deputy Head of Cabinet for Nicolas Schmit, Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights.

Santina Bertulessi joined the cabinet of Commissioner Schmit in December 2019, at the beginning of the current Commission’s mandate. She is the cabinet’s senior political adviser.

She is in charge, inter alia, of the coordination of the European Pillar of Social Rights, the European economic policy coordination and the European Semester, the Social dimension of the Economic and Monetary Union, the Child Guarantee, the Social economy and the relations with the European Parliament. She also follows Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.

Graduated in Political Science, she has a Master in Economics and International Relations and a PhD in international Relations.

Before joining the Cabinet of Commissioner Schmit, Santina Bertulessi has worked for more than 20 years at the European Parliament.

She started her carrier in the European institutions in 1997 as political adviser to Members of Parliaments of the Italian delegation of the PES Group.

She then moved to the secretariat of the PES/S&D group at the European Parliament as administrator in charge of socio-economic policies and Internal Market. In particular, she has been following the work of the Committees on Employment and Social Affairs, on Equal Opportunities and Women’s Rights, on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, and on the Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis.

She has worked, inter alia, on files relating to Economic Governance and the European Semester, Public Finances, Taxation, Financial Services regulation and supervision, Employment and Labour Law, Social Dialogue, the EU 2020 Strategy, Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility, Single Market legislation and governance, namely Public Procurement and Concessions, Product Safety, Customs Regulation, Consumer Protection and the Digital Single Market.

In 2015, Santina Bertulessi has moved to the European Parliament’s administration as administrator in charge of the Conference of Presidents (Parliament’s highest political body, composed by the President of the European Parliament and the Chairs of the political groups). She was in charge of preparing proposals for decisions, advising and assisting the cabinets of both Parliament's President and Secretary-General on procedures and files, advising Parliament's bodies and committees on procedures and liaising with political groups. She followed, in particular, parliamentary committee activities in the remit of the Conference of Presidents, inter-institutional relations and better law-making, external democracy support and election observation activities.

Before joining the European Parliament, Santina Bertulessi had worked as researcher at the ISPI (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale), Italian Institute for International Political Studies.