The job of leading Europe’s powerful police agency is up for grabs. POLITICO has the shortlist.
Antoaneta Roussi
The next executive director will succeed Catherine De Bolle, a Belgian top police official who has led the agency since 2018.
During De Bolle’s two terms in office Europol grew its tech capabilities and helped run groundbreaking law enforcement operations such as the crackdowns on encrypted comms networks Sky ECC in 2021 and EncroChat in 2020.
But its digital policing powers also drew scrutiny: The agency has repeatedly clashed with the EU’s in-house data protection supervisor over the privacy risks of how it accesses and manages data.
Separately, POLITICO in 2024 revealed that the agency had suffered a major internal data breach after personnel files containing information on Europol’s top management ended up on the streets of The Hague.
Ebner, originally from Germany, serves as deputy executive director of the agency’s governance directorate and was widely regarded as De Bolle’s right-hand man.
Malo looks after Spanish police personnel serving abroad and coordinates international work with Interpol and Europol.
