Georg Fischer is a senior research associate at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. His present focus is on social convergence in Europe. From 1996 to 2017 he was with the European Commission, where his last position was as Director for Social Affairs in DG EMPL. Before that he worked for the OECD and served in the cabinet of the minister of finance and in the Ministry of Labour in Austria. He has been a fellow at the WZB in Berlin, at the ECF in Tel Aviv, in the Yale University Macmillan Center and at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Michigan.