Damijan Jaklin

Damijan Jaklin has been active for more than two decades in the fields of local government, regional development, European policies, infrastructure, civil protection and disaster relief, and public administration. After graduating in Economics from the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Maribor, he completed both a specialist postgraduate programme and a Master’s degree in Management at the Faculty of Management of the University of Primorska. His academic research focused on the impact of European funding on the development of municipalities in the Pomurje region.

He began his professional career at the Slovenian Tourist Board Association, where he served as Secretary General. Since 2006, he has been serving as Mayor of the Municipality of Velika Polana, where he has gained extensive experience in local development, strategic planning, and the absorption of European funds through the implementation of numerous development, infrastructure, and cross-border projects.

Between 2020 and 2021, he served as State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia, contributing to the development of defence policy and the coordination of the civil protection and disaster management system. At DARS d.d. (the Motorway Company of the Republic of Slovenia), he was responsible for the management of motorway network maintenance between 2021 and 2023, and from 2023 to 2024, as Director of Projects, he led complex national infrastructure projects.

From 2020 to 2025, he was a member of the European Committee of the Regions, and since 2024, he has been serving in the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. His professional expertise is primarily focused on local self-government, regional development, European cohesion policy, infrastructure investments, crisis management, civil protection and disaster relief, and sustainable development.