Governor Talks: The Euro Area Turns 20- What's Next?

Governor Talks: Netherlands: The Euro Area Turns 20: What’s Next?

Friday, Apr 12, 2019 | 10:45 AM - 11:15 AM

Location: Cedar Hall, HQ1-1-660

As the euro area approaches this milestone, it is a good time to reflect on the main lessons from its first two decades and what they mean for the EMU architecture reform agenda. What is the proper balance between risk sharing and risk reduction? What are viable next steps in advancing banking and capital markets union? What are the main obstacles that will need to be overcome? As an outspoken advocate for quality of national economic policy above speed of supranational institutional reform, Minister Wopke Hoekstra can provide a special perspective on these questions.

Speaker

Wopke Hoekstra
Minister of Finance of the Netherlands

Career

After completing his legal studies, Wopke Hoekstra held commercial positions at Shell in Berlin, Hamburg and Rotterdam. In 2006, after obtaining his MBA, he began working for consultancy firm McKinsey & Company.

From 2011, he combined his role at McKinsey with membership of the Senate of the States General. He was deputy leader of the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA) in the Senate and a member of the Senate Committees for Finance, Security & Justice, Social Affairs & Employment, and Foreign Affairs, Defence & Development Cooperation.

On 26 October 2017 Wopke Hoekstra was appointed Minister of Finance in the third Rutte government.

Party political positions and outside activities

Wopke Hoekstra chaired the 2017 CDA electoral programme committee. He also chaired the supervisory board of the National Maritime Museum, was a member of the board of the Friends of the Hubrecht Institute and an ambassador of the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology.

Moderator

Poul Mathias Thomsen
Director of EUR, IMF

Poul M. Thomsen, a Danish national, has been Director of the European Department at the International Monetary Fund since November 2014 supervising the Fund’s bilateral surveillance work for the 44 countries in the Department, its policy dialogue with EU institutions, including the ECB, and its program discussions with European countries with Fund supported programs.

As Director Mr. Thomsen also has the responsibility for the Fund’s outreach activities in Europe and its interactions with European senior officials. Before taking up his current position, Mr. Thomsen had, as Deputy Director of the European Department, the primary responsibility for the Fund’s programs with European countries affected by the global financial crisis and the subsequent crisis in the Euro Zone, including as mission chief for Iceland, Greece and Portugal and as supervisor of the programs for Romania and Ukraine. Before the global financial crisis, Mr. Thomsen gained extensive knowledge of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, having worked on the region continuously from 1987 to 2008, including as mission chief for multiple countries in the region, head of the Fund’s Russia Division during the 1998 Russian financial crisis, and Director of its Moscow Office from 2001 to 2004.