Michael A. Köhler
Senior Fellow
Professor Michael Köhler is a Senior Fellow of LUISS Guido Carlì and Ambassador and co-lead of the Grand Bargain agreement (Geneva) signed by the largest donors and humanitarian organisations committing to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the humanitarian action (since 2023). In over 38 years he has gathered extensive field and Headquarters experience in a wide variety of foreign policy, development and humanitarian affairs functions. He has been teaching on the MENA region and the Muslim world, development and humanitarian issues, and European Union matter since 1993.
From 1994 to 2024 Michael Köhler served in the European Commission. From August 2019 to January 2024 he was Deputy Acting Director-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations in the European Commission’s DG ECHO, in charge of coordinating the world-wide EU humanitarian aid activities. From April 2022 to March 2023 he led DG ECHO as Acting Director- General.
From 2015 to 2019, he was Director for EU-Neighbourhood Policy at the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) and from 2013 to 2014 Director for the Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood in the Directorate-General for Development and International Cooperation (DG DEVCO). He served as Head of Cabinet to Commissioner for Energy, Günther H. Oettinger between 2010 and 2013 and as Head of Cabinet to Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Dr Joe Borg, between 2008 and 2009. Earlier career positions were desk officer for Yemen and Iraq, Assistant to the Director for South Mediterranean, Middle and Near East; Deputy European Correspondent; Deputy Head of Unit in charge of the co-ordination of Common Foreign and Security Policy; Deputy Head of Cabinet to Commissioner Borg, and Head of Unit for International Affairs and Law of the Sea at the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and Head of Unit for Maritime Policy for the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Before joining the European Commission, he worked for more than six years as a representative of Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Morocco and Tunisia, and later served in the Policy Planning Department of the Federal Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development in Germany.
Michael Köhler holds a Dr. phil. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Hamburg University (1987). Since 1997 he has been a professor for “Europe and the Mediterranean” the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, and also teaches at Université Paris1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne. Before that he was offering courses in peacebuilding at PSIA/Sciences Po, Paris, and in addition between 2006 and 2016 he served as a senior Fellow of the Center for European Integration Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. From 1993 to 2000 Michael Köhler read history of the Muslim world at Bonn University, Germany.
Professor Köhler is an Associate Senor Fellow or Board Member of various well-renowned EU, German, Belgian, Spanish, Swiss and UK-based foundations and Think Tanks specialising in international relations, peace and mediation, and development studies.