István P. Székely is a Principal Advisor in the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission and an Honorary Professor of Corvinus University in Budapest.  He is an economist by training with a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Before joining the European Commission in 2008, he worked at Corvinus University of Budapest, the University of Bonn, the UN Secretariat in New York, the National Bank of Hungary, and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. His research focuses on European integration, macroeconomic policy issues, and on Central and Eastern European economies.