POLITICO examined mission travel documents provided by the EDPS, analyzing its three most senior officials from 2017 to 2023: former European Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli; current (caretaker) European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski; and Secretary General Leonardo Cervera Navas.
POLITICO also looked at mission travel for the agency as a whole, including around 100 lower-level staffers and officials running the secretariat of Europe’s national data protection regulators’ group, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
Cervera Navas took a total of 36 trips to his native Spain over the seven-year period. His next most frequently visited countries were France and Germany, with six trips each. By comparison, Wiewiórowski visited Spain five times over the same period, while Buttarelli did not visit the country.
Cervera Navas was only appointed as the agency’s (first-ever) secretary general in 2023, having previously joined the EDPS as a manager in 2010 and being appointed director in 2018. While serving as director from 2018-2023 he was the only person at the EDPS with this title; no other director has been appointed since he took up the role of secretary general.
Meanwhile, former supervisor Buttarelli, who passed away in August 2019, took 29 trips to his home country of Italy, compared to four trips to his second-most visited country, the United States, and three trips each to France and the United Kingdom. By comparison, Wiewiórowski took nine trips to Italy in 2017-2023, and Cervera Navas three.
The current supervisor, Wiewiórowski, most often visited his home country of Poland and the Netherlands, with 20 mission visits to each. France was third with 13 trips.
