Helmut von Verschuer

Baron Helmut von Verschuer (born 6 December 1926 in Tübingen), sometimes referred to as Helmut van Verschuer in Dutch, was a European civil servant who was a high-ranking official of the European Commission from 1958 til 1987, and one of the most important EU officials in the Common Agricultural Policy field. Originally a German citizen, he has lived most of his life in Belgium.

A member of the noble Dutch Verschuer family, Verschuer studied agriculture at the Technical University of Munich and the University of Giessen, and earned an M.Sc. in agriculture in 1950 and a PhD in agriculture at the University of Göttingen in 1956. He was a civil servant in the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture in West Germany from 1952 to 1958. He was also a member of the West German permanent delegation to the negotiations on a European agricultural union 1952–1954 and participated in the Val Duchesse negotiations on the Rome Treaties, their compatibility with the GATT, and the free-trade area (1956–1958).^[1]

From 1958 to 1987 he worked for the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture. He was the executive assistant (i.e. private secretary) for the first director-general for agriculture Louis-Georges Rabot from 1958 to 1967, Director of General Affairs responsible for international negotiations from 1967 to 1972, and Deputy Director-General from 1972 to 1986. He played a key role in the EU's membership negotiations with Spain and Portugal. He was also President of the Association œcuménique européenne pour église et société in Brussels. He was also the author of several works on the Common Agricultural Policy.^[2][3]

He has lived in Brussels since 1958.

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