By CARLO BOFFA, EU Correspondent
THE EU’s financial services department has a new chief – Paulina Dejmek-Hack who today succeeded Sean Berrigan, one of the Union’s most respected civil servants.
Ms Derjmek-Hack, a Swedish-Czech national, becomes director general of DG FISMA. She had been Deputy Director General at FISMA since July and in that role directly oversaw the work of the Commission’s fincrime unit.
A lawyer by training, Dejmek-Hack began her career at a law firm in Frankfurt and the EFTA Surveillance Authority in Brussels.
She joined the Commission in 2004, working in the insurance and pensions unit of DG MARKT before moving to the Legal Service in 2007. During Sweden’s 2009 EU presidency, she was seconded to the country’s permanent representation as financial attaché.
In 2010, she joined the private office of French Commissioner Michel Barnier, serving as deputy head of cabinet from February to October 2014. She then became economic adviser to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
The Commission said in July that she had shown an ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and deliver in politically sensitive environments.
She moved to DG FISMA as director for general affairs in February 2021, overseeing policy coordination and the international affairs unit and sitting in forums such as the EU-US and EU-Japan financial regulatory dialogues.
In 2024, she returned to a commissioner’s office as head of cabinet to Jessika Roswall, the commissioner for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy.
End of an era
Berrigan’s retirement represents the end of an era for the directorate.
Sean, as he was commonly called at the Berlaymont, leaves after 40 years at the heart of Brussels policymaking, six of them as director general.
He was appointed on March 4, 2020, at the onset of the pandemic.
He steered the department through the crisis, running it mostly remotely at first. Under his tenure, the Commission delivered the crypto-asset regulation, the sustainable finance and corporate reporting rules and the EU’s new anti-money laundering rules, due to take effect in 2027.
AML Intelligence awarded Berrigan the “AML Champion 2025” prize for his pivotal role in guiding the EU’s new AML laws, including the AML Authority, from concept to operation.
“I feel privileged to have contributed to some of the defining projects of European integration — from the Single Market, the Structural Funds, the Exchange Rate Mechanism to the launch of the euro, the Banking Union and the Capital Markets Union, and more recently the Savings and Investments Union,” Berrigan said in a farewell post on LinkedIn.
“There were also difficult times such as the Great Financial Crisis or the euro debt crisis, but those very challenging times also gave me a strong sense of purpose.
“At all times, my career was interesting, demanding and fascinating.”
Commissioner for Financial Services Maria Luís Albuquerque said Berrigan leaves behind a stronger directorate and an “extraordinar legacy” of EU service.
“I have had the privilege of knowing Sean from different perspectives over the years, long before I became Commissioner,” she said. “I have always admired his ability to cut through complexity, his patience in explaining even the obvious, his empathy and his composure in all circumstances.”
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