Jochen M. Richter is the initiator and President of Cercle Européen Renert, Luxembourg's independent think tank.
A German and a true European — the latter by a series of coincidences — he brings to this role three decades of experience at the heart of the EU institutions. His teaching experience at three universities adds an academic element. He is also a networker being amongst others anExecutive Member of the Diplomatic Council (an UN-registered think tank), where he chairs its Global Security Forum. And he is an author of books around EU enlargement and security.
Born a year before the Berlin Wall was built, to parents shaped by their experiences in the Second World War, he grew up in Düsseldorf and lived through the Cold War and the revolutions of the 1960s on wards. He holds a degree in public administration and began his career in Germany's public administration including working in IT.
Over the 30 years he worked across both the European Commission and the EuropeanParliament, he had positions in research, competition, the internal market and conciliation. He also served two European Commissioners in their private office (cabinet): Frits Bolkestein, as cabinet member, and Leonard Orban, as Deputy Head of Cabinet.
He has been teaching at Luxembourg University since 2019. The Heinrich Heine University offered him a further teaching engagement in 2022.Since January 2024, he has also been lead lecturer and expert for the Certificate Program "European Integration" at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, travelling to Ukraine repeatedly to lecture on European integration.He is an established author and editor. His 2022 bookLast Train Westis available in English,Romanian and Ukrainian.
He contributed a chapter to Dr Sophie Loussouarn's Brexit and itsAftermath. In 2024 initiated, coordinated and co-wroteEurope and the Emerging New Global Order, published in five languages in February 2025. Its publication was followed by a Europeanbook tour. He co-edited a book onSpace Security, published end of January 2026, and iscurrently co-editing a forthcoming book on AI and society, due in January 2027.