Important Note

Online registration is required and open to current students, faculty, and staff from Columbia University, Barnard College, and Teachers College. These events will also be livestreamed on World Leaders Forum and Columbia University’s YouTube channel.

Please join the World Leaders Forum, the Center for Global Economic Governance, and the Harriman Institute for a conversation with Klaus Welle, Secretary-General of the European Parliament. Moderated by Peter Clement, Senior Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor; Interim Director, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies in the School of International and Public Affairs.

Klaus Welle has been Secretary-General of the European Parliament, a key administrative post in the European Union political system in Brussels, since 2009. He previously served as chief of staff to the President of the European Parliament, as Director-General for EU Internal Policies in the Parliament’s administration, and as Secretary-General successively of the (center-right) European People’s Party (EPP) transnational political party and of the EPP political group in the European Parliament. Mr. Welle started his career as a banker and then became head of European and foreign policy at the headquarters of the CDU party in Germany, working closely with then Chancellor Helmut Kohl. He is also a visiting professor in European politics at KU Leuven University in Belgium.

Image and biography: The Office of the Secretary-General of the European Parliament, October 2022