Keynote speakers

Latsis University Prizes Ceremony

Journalist, analyst, international relations theorist, politician

Viviane Reding began her career in journalism as an editorial writer for the daily newspaper “Luxemburger Wort” after obtaining a doctorate in human sciences from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. She also headed the Luxembourg Journalists’ Union from 1986 to 1989.

She began her political career in 1979 when she was elected to the Luxembourg Parliament. Ten years later, she was one of six Luxembourg MPs elected to the European Parliament. During her three terms of office, Viviane Reding became one of Europe’s most important figures. She was a member of the European Commission from 1999 to 2014, successively in charge of education, culture, multilingualism and youth, then information society and media, and finally justice, fundamental rights and citizenship. As Commissioner for the Digital Society, she played a key role in reforming the European telecommunications sector by opening up the internal market to competition. At the same time, she also reformed the European research sector.

Viviane Reding has laid the foundations for an ingrained respect for fundamental rights within European institutions, receiving numerous prizes and honorary degrees from leading universities in the process. People refer to the “Reding method”, the power of surrounding herself with the best experts from all over Europe to analyse problems, find solutions, and apply them.

On the strength of her experience, she now advises companies in her preferred fields of geopolitics and digital technology. She specialises in quantum computing, which she believes will completely change the way the world operates, for example in the face of serious health crises. Viviane Reding stresses the need to introduce legislation to govern these coming upheavals.

@ www.globaleurope.eu