Luca Jahier has been elected President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on 18 April 2018 for a period of two and a half years, until October 2020. He has been a member of the Committee since 2002. Within the EESC, he has worked extensively on the European Union's social and cohesion policies, as well as on international matters, first as vice-president of the Committee's Section for Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship and then as president of the ACP-EU Follow-up Committee and president of the Permanent group on Immigration and Integration. In October 2011, he was elected president of Group III of the EESC, and was re-elected in January 2013 and in October 2015. In this capacity, he has been a member of the EESC's Bureau. Over the course of three terms in office as president, Group III carried out nine studies, and held 42 conferences in 17 EU countries attended by thousands of people and countless meetings with European civil society organisations. Before becoming a member of the Committee, Jahier was active in the field of international cooperation and development and acted as a founding member of the Italian Third Sector Forum.