Meet Jean-Eric Paquet, EU Ambassador Set To Speak At NDTV World Summit 2026

Jean-Eric Paquet, the Ambassador of the European Union to India, will be part of the NDTV World Summit 2026, scheduled to take place in New Delhi on October 22 and 23.

Paquet will speak on Day 1 of the summit at 3 PM during a session titled "The West, Rewired: The New Transatlantic Order". He will share the session with Philip Green, Australian High Commissioner to India.

Who is Jean-Eric Paquet?

Jean-Eric Paquet is the Ambassador of the European Union (EU) to India and the Ambassador-designate to Bhutan. He has more than three decades of experience in public service. He has held several senior positions in the European Commission, the EU's executive body.

He studied political science and public policy at the Institute of Political Science in Strasbourg, France, completing his degree in 1988, according to his LinkedIn profile. He then pursued a master's degree in European Administration at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, which he completed in 1989. 

Paquet began his career at the European Commission in 1993, working on international transport relations. From 1999 to 2002, he worked in the office of Gunter Verheugen, the European Commissioner for Enlargement. He later became Deputy Head of Cabinet to Philippe Busquin, who was responsible for research policy, from 2002 to 2004.

In 2004, Paquet took up his first major diplomatic posting as the EU Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. He served in the role until 2007. After returning to the European Commission in 2007, he worked on transport and infrastructure policy. From 2011 to 2015, he headed various departments in the Directorates-General for Transport and Enlargement. 

Between 2015 and 2018, Paquet was Deputy Secretary-General of the European Commission. From 2018 to 2022, he served as Director-General for Research and Innovation at the European Commission. 

Then, he served as the EU Ambassador to Japan from September 2022 to August 2026. He was based in Tokyo and worked on relations between the European Union and Japan. 

NDTV World Summit 2026

The summit will bring together world leaders, policymakers, business leaders, economists and experts to discuss the changes countries are going through and what they mean for the future. This year's theme is "A World Between Orders".