Gratian Mihailescu

Expertise

Domestic and foreign policy; EU affairs; development; international relations.

Bio

Since 2012, Gra?ian has been a consultant and expert in Romania in Belgium on cohesion policy, EU funds, regional development, good governance, regionalisation and multi-level governance for a series of institutions and organizations (the Romanian Government, the European Commission, the Assembly of European Regions, the Romanian Academic Society, Advocacy Academy, Europuls, the Institute of Popular Studies, Freedom House Romania), SMEs and NGOs.

From 2011-12, he was a researcher at the Belgrade University, Serbia where he collected quantitative and qualitative data such as meetings, discussions and interviews with people involved in Serbia’s EU accession process and representatives of Serbian civil society for the comparative and inter-disciplinary study: “Regional Development of Eastern European Regions through absorption of Community Funds (case study of Podlaskie-Poland, Nord East-Romania, Vojvodina-Serbia)”.

From 2007-10, as a stagier for a Romanian MEP, Gra?ian designed and implemented capacity building projects for local and regional administration. In the same period, he was a junior consultant on EU affairs, lobbying and networking for Consulmarc Sviluppo at EU institutions and writing project proposals for Consulmarc clients on structural funds.

He publishes analysis and editorials across multiple platforms: Europuls, Contributors, Hotnews, Adevarul, Caleaeuropeana and on a personal blog www.gratieluimihailescu.ro. He received several journalism awards from Freedom House, the European Commission and Eurolink House of Europe.

In 2015, Gra?ian started a PhD program at the Political Science Department of West University of Timisoara, in collaboration with Vrije University of Brussels, with the topic “How functional is subsidiarity in Europe”. He holds a MA in European Affairs and a BA in Communication and Public Relations from the School of High Comparative European Studies, Jean Monnet Chair-Center of Excellence, West University of Timisoara. He was awarded various scholarships from the European Commission and an Erasmus scholarship at the Karl Eberhard University of Tübingen, Germany and was part of the university awarded NMUN German delegation at UN headquarters in New York.

He became a fellow of a couple of postgraduate courses organized by the European Commission and a number of European Universities. Gra?ian is proficient in English and fluent in German and French.