Ben Smulders is the Dutch Judge at the European Court of Justice. Before joining the CJEU in 2024, he worked as a lawyer at the Amsterdam Bar and then moved to the European Commission’s Legal Service.  Within the Commission, Ben Smulders held multiple senior positions, including as a member of the cabinet of the Commissioner for External Relations and Enlargement, Mr Hans van den Broek (from 1995 to 1999), of the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Taxation and Customs Union, Mr Frits Bolkestein (from 1999 to2000) and of the President, Mr Romano Prodi (from 2000 to 2004). From 2004 to 2008, he was Head of Cabinet to the Commissioner for Competition, Ms Neelie Kroes, then Principal Legal Adviser, as Director, to the ‘Institutions and economic and monetary union’ team in the Commission’s Legal Service (from 2008 to 2014). He was Head of Cabinet of the First Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Frans Timmermans (from 2014 to 2019), then Senior Legal Adviser, as Director, to the ‘World trade organisation and trade policy’ team of the Commission’s Legal Service (from 2020 to 2022). From 2022 to 2024, he was Deputy Director-General at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition where he was responsible for State aid control.

In addition to his career in the EU institutions, Ben Smulders has always also remained academically active. For example, he lectured at the Fondazione Collegio Europeo di Parma (European College of Parma, Italy) from 2003 to 2024 and at the université Paris-Panthéon-Assas (Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University, France) since 2019, and as a visiting professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels, Belgium) and at the Collège d'Europe de Bruges (College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium) since 2013. He also taught at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) and the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands) from 1994 to 2005. From 2002 to 2022, Mr Smulders was a member and then Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Europa Instituut at the Faculty of Law of the Universiteit Leiden. From 2008 to 2024, he was a member of the editorial board of the Common Market Law Review.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, particularly in the areas of competition law, institutional law, protection of the rule of law, the internal market and the economic and monetary union.

As a distinguished fellow at the Europa Instituut, Ben Smulders contributes to research activities, both on EU institutional and constitutional law and on EU competitiveness and provides guest lectures.