Benoit Esmanne

Task Force Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), Directorate-General Budget, European Commission, Brussels

Benoit Esmanne is graduated in public affairs from Université Catholique de Louvain and also studied European Politics and Policies at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. During his 10 years in DG AGRI, he worked on the implementation and then coordination of the rural development policy in view of the latest Common Agricultural Policy reform. He also spent 4 years in the EU Delegation to Montenegro where he prepared the country for possible future accession to the EU. He contributed to set-up the national structures responsible for the payment of subsidies to farmers, design the measures to support investments in agricultural holdings and in the food/processing industry.

He then moved to DG GROW where he was part of the team supporting industrial clusters implementing the ambition of the EU Industrial strategy, namely accelerating the green and digital transition of the EU economy while strengthening its resilience and paving the way for the open strategic autonomy. In particular, he was responsible for the EU funded programme supporting cluster excellence as well as for the joint cluster initiative, helping to create EU wide partnerships of clusters within the various industrial ecosystems to bolster EU value chains. He also supported the work of the Industrial Forum by coordinating the work on identifying cross-border and cross sectoral investment opportunities.

Since December 2023, he joined DG BUDG as a member of the Task Force for the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform to support the uptake and scaling up of the development and manufacturing of critical emerging technologies relevant to the green and digital transitions in the EU and to the strategic sovereignty of the Union.