Picture of Gert Jan Koopman

Gert Jan Koopman

Director General, DG ENEST, European Commission

As of January 2023 Gert Jan Koopman is the Director-General of the Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations. Between 2018 and December 2022, he was the Director-General of the European Commission’s budget department. In this role, he contributed to putting in place the European Union’s €800 billion NextGenerationEU recovery plan as well as the €18 billion MFA+ for Ukraine. He has worked to enable its financing on the capital markets through a sovereign-style funding system. Mr Koopman has been serving the EU for roughly three decades. Previously, he was in charge of State Aid control at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. His earlier assignments included senior management posts in the department for Economic and Financial Affairs – the Commission’s economic service - as well as Enterprise and Industry – which supervises the smooth running of the single market. In the past, Mr Koopman was a member of the Commission’s Impact Assessment Board, in charge of assessing whether the draft EU legislation would achieve the desired results, and worked in the private office of Vice-President Kinnock – lastly as a Head of Cabinet. Prior to joining the Commission, Mr Koopman was an associate of the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, an independent research institute that prepares policy analysis for the Dutch government. A Dutch national, he holds degrees in Economics and Latin and Greek from the University of Amsterdam.

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01 February 2017

State Aid and Tax Rulings

When do national tax rulings violate EU state aid rules? Does the European Commission's approach raise concerns about Member State Sovereignity and wh