Geert Dancet

Geert Dancet is since January 2018 managing director of Dancet Company which provides strategic advice services to companies, governments and non-governmental organisations on chemicals legislation and competition matters. He is also the Secretary General of the Helsinki Chemical Forum which organises each year a high-level global conference on chemicals safety. 

Up to end of 2017 he was the first elected Executive Director of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) for two mandates of five years. Under his leadership, the Agency successfully managed all regulatory processes of the REACH and CLP regulations. ECHA has became one of the large-size regulatory agencies of the EU with over 500 staff members in charge of the EU chemicals legislations, including the Biocidal Products and PIC regulations.  

The Commission had already nominated him as interim Executive Director in January 2007 in order to set up the Agency in Helsinki. From 2004 to 2007 he was the Head of the REACH Unit in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry. The unit was co-responsible for taking the REACH proposal through the regulatory process in the Council and the European Parliament as well as for developing and coordinating the REACH implementation strategy, which included the preparations for the new Chemicals Agency. 

He first joined the European Commission in 1986 and worked for most of his Commission career in the competition policy field. Prior to working for the European Commission, Mr Dancet enjoyed a brief academic career in the University of Leuven (Belgium) and was a programme coordinator for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in Colombia. 

He studied economics, econometrics and philosophy at the University of Leuven, Belgium.