Maria Catarina Louro
Catarina Louro is a Research Analyst at Bruegel working on demographic trends and European Union enlargement.
Her work has contributed to Bruegel’s research on how labour market transformations and developments in the energy sector have shaped the economic and social development of EU candidate and neighbouring countries.
Catarina speaks Portuguese, English, Spanish and French.
She joined Bruegel in March 2025. Before that, she worked as a Research Assistant and Project Coordinator at the NOVAFRICA Knowledge Center and the Economics of Education Knowledge Center at Nova School of Business and Economics, contributing to the RCT “Raising Educational Aspirations – An Experimental Evaluation.” She holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Economics from the Nova School of Business and Economics.
Featured work
The Western Balkan energy sector: between Russia, the European Union and the green transition
This paper analyses energy transitions in the Western Balkans, away from dependence on Russia and towards the EU electricity market
Economic convergence, demography, labour markets: what progress have EU candidate countries made?
Candidate countries remain far from European Union averages in terms of GDP per capita and their demographic and labour market characteristics
All work
Working paper
19 December 2025
The Western Balkan energy sector: between Russia, the European Union and the green transition
This paper analyses energy transitions in the Western Balkans, away from dependence on Russia and towards the EU electricity market
Analysis
17 July 2025
Economic convergence, demography, labour markets: what progress have EU candidate countries made?
Candidate countries remain far from European Union averages in terms of GDP per capita and their demographic and labour market characteristics