Mr. Gutierrez Hidalgo is an EU Official with more than 20 years of service at the European Commission. Since September 2018 he is based in Ankara as First Counsellor and Head of the Economic Cooperation and Social Section at the EU Delegation to Ankara, where he is responsible for the management of of the financial assistance to Turkey under the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA I and II) in the areas of Environment and Climate Change, Transport, Competitiveness and Innovation and Human Development.
Before his arrival to Turkey, Mr Gutierrez Hidalgo was posted in Cairo at the EU Delegation to Egypt, being responsible for the EU cooperation with Egypt and bilateral and regional programmes in the fields of trade, private sector support, environment, energy, infrastructures, water and sanitation, R&DI.
He initiated his professional career as an Adviser at the European Union Relations Department at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Madrid, Spain. In 1996, He joined the European Commission in Brussels as an Official where he dealt with Business cooperation issues and international trade relations. From 2001, he was appointed as Head of Economic Cooperation, Trade and Political Affairs Section at the European Commission Delegation in Bolivia and has since then been working in Delegations and Headquarters on EU external relations and as responsible of development cooperation and. From September 2006 he joined the European Union Delegation to Syria as Head of Operations and Economic Cooperation. In September 2010 he was appointed Head of Sector African Union and Pan African Issues at the European Commission in Brussels at the Directorate General for Development and Cooperation – Europaid.
Mr. Gutierrez is a Bachelor Graduate in Law from the University of Complutense of Madrid in Spain and a Master of Arts in European Affairs at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.