EU careers beyond the Blue Book

Derk Oldenburg

• Derk Oldenburg works as an independent consultant, strategic adviser and trainer. He is a lecturer at the University of Maastricht and the Hertie School in Berlin. He focuses on the interaction between the public and private sectors with a strong emphasis on geopolitical issues, digital policy and governance. 

  In recent years, he was Managing Director Public Policy at Liberty Global, a leading international tele-communications company where he was in charge of relations with governments, regulators and the European Institutions. 

  Prior to Liberty Global Derk was a Dutch diplomat. Most of his functions were in EU affairs. Amongst others he was Secretary of the Netherlands government’s EU coordination committee and coordinator of the Netherlands EU presidency in 2004. He also served as Deputy Ambassador to Germany and Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU. As member of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper I) he dealt with negotiations on a wide range of legislative issues, ranging from agriculture and fisheries to energy, climate, transport and telecommunications.

  Derk graduated in Nordic Languages and Law from the University of Utrecht in 1983. After his university years, he served as an officer in the Netherlands Marine Corps and worked for the World Food Programme in the Sudan. He speaks Dutch, Danish, French, English and German. 

Thu Nguyen

• Thu Nguyen is Deputy Director of the Jacques Delors Centre. She leads the think tank’s work on institutional questions of EU policy. In her own work, she mainly focusses on EU institutional reform, rule of law, democracy and economic governance. She is also the host of the Jacques Delors Centre Podcast “EU to go – der Podcast für Europapolitik”. Before joining the Centre, Thu was Assistant Professor of EU and comparative constitutional law at the Faculty of Law at Maastricht University. She holds a PhD in EU constitutional law from Maastricht University and was a re:constitution Fellow 2019-2020. She studied European Law in Maastricht, Rennes and the College of Europe in Bruges. Thu has given evidence on the subject of EU institutional reform and EU economic governance in various committee hearings in the German Bundestag and European Parliament. In January 2023, she was appointed by the German government to the Franco-German expert group on EU institutional reforms.

Joost Korte

• Joost Korte works as an adviser, coach and trainer. He has had a long and broad career in the European Commission. His professional experience allowed him to develop a deep insight and knowledge of European decision-making.

  He graduated in European Law from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and entered the service of the Commission in 1991 after an academic career in Utrecht and Edinburgh. Between 1997 and 1999 he was a member of Cabinet of Commissioner Leon Brittan and from 2002 to 2004 Deputy Head of Cabinet of Commissioner Chris Patten. Between 2004 and 2007 he served as Head of Cabinet for Commissioner Danuta Hübner. After this he was Director in the General Secretariat, i.a. responsible for relations – and negotiations – with the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. In 2012 he changed to the position of Deputy Director-General for Enlargement. Following this, he served as Deputy DG Agriculture and Rural Development and Deputy DG Trade.

  Joost recently retired from the Commission as Director-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, a position he has held since 2018.