Alumni Event: Day of Europe

Gundars Ostrovskis soon after graduating from SSE Riga dedicated himself to Latvia's EU accession process as a counselor to the Parliament's European Affairs Committee. From then onwards, Gundars' career has always been at the intersection of EU affairs and economics. For the first three years of Latvia's EU membership, Gundars held  the post of the Latvian Parliament's representative to the EU in Brussels. In 2007, he joined the European Commission to work as an economist in its Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, among other things, coordinating the Latvian structural reform process as part of the Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs. Between 2010 and 2012, he spent two years in Frankfurt working as an economist at the European Central Bank's Directorates-General for European/International Relations and Financial Stability, following which Gundars returned to Brussels to join the European Commission's Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union. He has spent most of his time analysing the economic impact of EU legislation in the field of capital markets, notably as regards financial market infrastructures. He is now a senior economist primarily responsible for analysing and developing EU policy in the emerging field of Fintech, including solutions relating to artificial intelligence, blockchain and crypto-assets. Gundars holds a Master of Arts degree in European Economic studies from the College of Europe (Bruges) and a Master of Science degree in Banking and Finance from the Luxembourg School of Finance.

Gundars will talk about the EU transition to the knowledge-based economy and its economic implications:

• growing investment in intangibles with repercussions on traditional financing models
• implications for competition and social policy due to the winner takes it all outcomes
• fragmentation of the value chain through specialisation and democratisation of entrepreneurship via software as a service applications
• EU digital single market and the future

Gatis Eglītis is a member of the New Conservative Party. He serves as deputy chair of the European Affairs committee, has been appointed by the Latvian Parliament (Saeima) to oversee financial sector and implementation of Moneyval recommendations, and sits on the Saeima Budget and finance committee. Prior to Saeima work, Gatis pursued an 8-year career in the European Commission (DG ECFIN). Gatis has also served in the Latvian Foreign Affairs ministry in the security policy and foreign economic relations departments. Gatis has a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, the Vienna Diplomatic Academy.

Gatis will discuss challenges that Europe is facing -
Brexit, Brussels, Riga: what's next?