Helga Maria Schmid
Helga Maria Schmid is Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS) in Brussels and was patron of IFAIR’s EU-ASEAN Perspectives Dialogue III in 2016.
Before assuming her role as Secretary General of the EEAS in 2016, Helga Maria Schmid was Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs at EEAS from 2011 until 2017 and Director of the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit of the High Representative for the CFSP in the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union from 2006 until 2010. At the national level, Helga Maria Schmid has held various positions in the German Foreign Service, including as Head of the Political Staff of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin and Head of the Minister’s Office (2003-2005), as Political Adviser to Foreign Ministers Joschka Fischer (1998-2000) and Klaus Kinkel (1994-1998) and as Press and Public Affairs officer at the German Embassy of Washington D.C. (1991-1994). Helga Maria Schmid holds an MA in English and Romance languages, literature, history and politics from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Sorbonne University in Paris.