Elisa
FERREIRA

Elisa Ferreira is the European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms (1 December 2019 onwards). Before this position, she worked as the Vice-Governor of the Bank of Portugal (‘Banco de Portugal’) from June 2016, becoming Vice-Governor in September 2017. During her tenure, she was Portugal’s representative in the Supervisory Board of the Single Supervisory Mechanism. Between 2004 and 2016, she was a Member of the European Parliament. Throughout her mandate, she coordinated the Group of Socialists and Democrats in the EP’s Economic and Monetary (ECON) Committee, and was rapporteur, co-rapporteur or shadow rapporteur of many key legislative files, including the Stability Pact’s Six-Pack and Two-Pack, the BRRD or the Regulation creating the Single Resolution Mechanism.
She was also a member of the Portuguese National Parliament between 2002 and 2004.

Between 1999-2022, Elisa Ferreira was Portugal’s Minister for Planning (responsible for the Portuguese EU Multiannual Framework for regional policy). She was Portugal’s Minister for the Environment from 1995 to 1999. Between 1992 and 1994 she was Executive Vice-President of the Porto Industrial Association. Before this, she worked at Portugal’s Northern Region Coordination Commission, a central government regional development institution of which she was the Vice-President from 1988 until 1992; in parallel, she was also a member of the Board of the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (Statistics Portugal). She has a degree in Economics from the University of Porto, and a Master’s Degree (1981) and a PhD (1985) from the University of Reading, in the UK. She is also a professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto (on leave of absence).