Former European Commissioner for Trade (2014–2019) and Home Affairs (2010–2014), Cecilia Malmström has represented the EU in trade talks with Canada, Japan, and the Mercosur bloc. She has also defended EU values in the face of digital protectionism and rising geopolitical tensions. Since stepping down from the European Commission, Malmström has continued to shape the trade debate as a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and host of its Trade Winds series.
She is a visiting professor at the University of Gothenburg’s School of Business, Economics and Law and holds a PhD in political science from the same university. During Cecilia Malmström’s tenure as trade commissioner, she helped forge deals covering more than 600 million people, including the EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement—the largest bilateral trade deal in history at the time. Yet she speaks just as comfortably about the cascading effects of tariffs on car parts in Italy or shoe imports in the US, grounding geopolitics in everyday economics.
Malmström’s worldview is resolutely multilateral. She has defended the World Trade Organisation even as global powers have turned their backs on it, and she has called for “an economic coalition of the willing” to preserve the rules-based order. At a moment when trade is once again being wielded as a weapon, she is one of the few leaders with both the institutional memory and moral clarity to warn what’s at stake. Crucially, Malmström believes Europe must not only resist external pressure but also rebuild from within. She has pushed for more structural reforms, a stronger internal market, and deeper ties with partners beyond the Atlantic including India, Mexico, and Indonesia. “We cannot be naïve,” she says, “but we also cannot retreat. We must be tougher, faster, and more united.”
Whether inside the European Commission or outside it, Cecilia Malmström remains one of Europe’s most articulate defenders of a global trade system that continues to serve as a crucial pillar of international peace and prosperity.
