Preparing for Mid-Term Review

Chrysoula has been auditing cohesion policy funds for 20 years. She holds a bachelors and an MBA degree, both in business administration. Her audit interests lie around the topics of infrastructure for environment and transport, but recently also on the RRF design and implementation.

Dr. Oana Cristea has a professional career of 20 years in the Romanian central public administration. Since 2007 she is Head of Unit in the General Directorate for EU Territorial Cooperation, within the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration of Romania. She has managed the EU funding periods between 2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 as Head of Unit of the Romania-Serbia Managing Authority, coordinating the management and implementation of the Romania-Serbia Interreg IPA Programme. Pursuing a career in the field of EU funds in the context of EU external actions and as a member of the DG Enlargement Committee for the Instrument of Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA), since December 2006, she has been involved in coordinating policies and trust-building measures in the Western Balkans and acquired comprehensive knowledge on EU external assistance programmes and policies, both through day-to-day working experience and through participation in the decision-making processes. Dr. Cristea has broaden her knowledge in donor coordination, EU funds & external instruments, through her previous positions in the European Commission - DG Regional and Urban Policy, F1: Competence Centre for Operational Efficiency and as expert in the Taiex and Twinning projects dedicated to the Western Balkans. She has post-graduate studies in international relations and a PhD in international relations, with a thesis on the Western Balkans security in the context of strengthening the strategic autonomy of the European Union.

Christine Hamza has 25 years of experience in EU cohesion and innovation policy, regional development and city planning. She has launched the company M&E Factory GmbH 2015 together with Angelos Sanopoulos. During her career Christine has worked with ministries, regional authorities, the European Commission (DG REGIO, DG RESEARCH, DG EMPL, DG AGRI and DG MARE) and the European Parliament. Working with different types of authorities lead to her experience in addressing regional and local development projects from the policy side as well as from the development side. Christine has profound experience in programming, monitoring and evaluation of EU funding programmes. She was involved in the programme preparation 1999-2006, 2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027. Christine is the team leader of the DG Regio ex-post evaluation 2014-2020 of Work Package 11 - European Territorial Cooperation. Since 2017 Christine is the monitoring and evaluation coordinator of the support unit of DG MARE and she is evaluation country expert for Germany and Austria for the rural development helpdesk. Christine earned a degree as a landscape ecologist in 1996 and another in economics (MBA) in 2004. She is native in German and earned a C2 Cambridge certificate in English. She is also fluent in Spanish.

Olga is working in the area of auditing EU funds since 2003. She started as an internal auditor for auditing the EU pre-accession instruments and continued with audits of the EU funds. Her current responsibilities are related to the quality control of audit work and coordination of anti-fraud activities. In addition Olga has participated as a short term expert in 5 Twinning projects in the area of auditing EU funds and implementation of the anti-fraud measures. She also has extensive experience as a speaker in different international seminars and conferences.