Maria João Rodrigues, a former Portuguese minister under PM António Guterres, is a European politician with a long track record in different European institutions: EU Presidencies, the Council, the European Council, the European Commission and, more recently, the European Parliament. She is currently the president of FEPS, a European political foundation located in Brussels that is financed by the EU budget to support EU policy-making and has UN observer status and a network of partners across Europe and the world. She has played a relevant role in several important European and international initiatives: the EU's development agenda; the interface with EU strategic partners Africa, China, Brazil and India for sustainable development; the EU's Lisbon Treaty; and, more recently, the European Pillar of Social Rights. She was formerly the professor of European economic policies at the European Studies Institute (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and at the Lisbon University Institute, and she was the chair of the European Commission Advisory Board for socioeconomic sciences. She is the author of more than 100 publications, including 11 books.