2023-12-25 13:01:00
The European Union is the common thread of the career of this 48-year-old senior civil servant, originally from Brussels. Having completed a degree of additional studies in European affairs, obtained following a degree in Sciences Po, at UCLouvain, Theodora Gentzis joined Foreign Affairs as a contract worker in 2000. In the Europe department to, already, prepare for a Belgian presidency , that of 2001. “I was the little hand who takes notes while remaining silent in a corner, who listens and who learns,” she rewinds. “We prepared a whole presidency hard. And then, from September 11 (and the attacks that hit the United States, Editor’s note), things completely changed and the agenda had to be readjusted,” recalls Theodora Gentzis.
Here is the program of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union
She was then appointed to Foreign Affairs where she continued to plow the European furrow. During the 2010 presidency, she was, still at the DGE, coordinator for questions linked to Enlargement – Croatia is preparing to join the Union, Turkey’s accession is not yet a mirage. In 2014, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders (MR) invited her to join his cabinet as an advisor. Theodora Gentzis will stay there for three years, before returning “to the parent company”, the DGE, and taking the exam which allows her to take over its management.
Both praise “his intelligence” and “his capacity for work”. A voice whispers: “He’s not a very round person.” Another adds, with a bit of irony: “We see that it does not come from the diplomatic channel”, before using to qualify it the expression “severe, but fair”. The task of the administration that she led until recently is to coordinate the position of the Belgian entities, federal and federated, to ensure that Belgium speaks with one voice on the European scene – when that proves impossible, the Belgian representative on the Council abstains. “Is it easy? It’s clear that there are interesting discussions,” she euphemizes, when it comes to agreeing the positions of all the Belgian entities and all the parties that make up the different governments – that’s- that is to say all, except Vlaams Belang and the PTB.
How the EU works ©Didier Lorge
This summer, press articles appeared on the fact that the interim director of the FPS Foreign Affairs had twice failed the so-called “mail box” test, which prevented her appointment. The examination has since been modified, which led to it being written that the MR was protecting one of his own, which Ms. Gentzis refutes, and Minister Lahbib too. “Yes, it benefited him, but it also suited others,” points out an insider. Furthermore, it would have been absurd for this ordeal to block someone who had already proven himself in this position.”
Theodora Gentzis’s duties leave little time for leisure. “Family and reading” are the havens of this mother of three young adults, as well as “the mountains, where I escape whenever I can”.
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