On 15 March 2024, the College of Europe in Natolin hosted Ms Anna JAROSZ-FRIIS, the Director of Ukraine Service in the Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), and Head of the Secretariat of the Donor Coordination Platform (Ukraine).
Ms JAROSZ-FRIIS delivered a Special Lecture on Supporting Ukraine's Recovery, Reconstruction, and Reform Efforts.
The lecture came at a time when EU leaders prepared for the upcoming European Council to discuss, among other topics, ongoing support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s full-scale war.
Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression, the EU and its member states have already committed over €138 billion to aid Ukraine and its citizens.
About the speaker
Ms JAROSZ-FRIIS holds a PhD in economics and worked in academia in Poland and Denmark prior to joining the Commission in 2002.
Previously, Ms JAROSZ-FRIIS worked in the Commission’s budget department, in charge of strategy, interinstitutional relations and communication. She was part of the team behind the proposal for the NextGenerationEU and its main programme, the Recovery and Resilience Facility. She was also involved in various strategic European Commission projects, working to shape their budgetary dimension.
She also worked in the Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP), where she was leading a unit responsible for state aid control in the energy sector, with a specific focus on support to renewables and capacity mechanism. Her experience also includes leading one of the Financial Crisis Taskforce units in DG COMP, dealing with restructuring and resolving banks that received state aid during the financial crisis.
She was part of the private office of Mr Joaquín ALUMNIA, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Competition in the BARROSO II Commission. Her earlier assignments in the Commission included developing state aid crisis rules for banks and negotiating rules on subsidies in the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, among others.