Damien Cristofari

Damien Cristofari is a visiting senior fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center on Europe and Eurasia, where his research focuses on European foreign and security policy, transatlantic relations, European defense, the European Union’s external relations, and the Middle East.

A career diplomat with the French Foreign Service, Cristofari has extensive experience working on European affairs, EU foreign policy, and transatlantic relations. Most recently, he served as head of the Political Section at the French Embassy in Washington, DC, where he covered US foreign and domestic policy.

From 2019 to 2022, he served at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs as deputy assistant secretary in charge of the European Union’s external relations, helping shape French policy on the EU’s relations with its international partners and on major European foreign policy issues. Earlier, in Brussels, he was a political adviser to the deputy secretary general for political affairs of the European External Action Service, working at the heart of the EU’s foreign and security policy apparatus.

His European experience also includes service at the French Permanent Representation to the European Union, where his portfolio covered the Middle East and North Africa, as well as work as political adviser to the European Union special representative for the Middle East Peace Process. These positions gave him extensive experience at the intersection of European policymaking and EU external action. 

Cristofari also has substantial expertise in the Middle East and North Africa. He served in Jerusalem as deputy consul general, as well as in Algiers and Cairo, and later worked on Middle East and North Africa policy in the office of the French minister for Europe and foreign affairs.
He holds a BA in history from Sorbonne University and an MA in Arab Studies from Sciences Po Paris. He speaks French, English, and Arabic.