Deputy Secretary General
CIT, Switzerland
ERIK EVTIMOV studied law at the Universities of Sofia and Berne. He was awarded a Master of European Law (LL.M. Eur.) following post graduate studies in European law at European Institute of the University of Saarland. He qualified as a lawyer in Sofia. A doctorate (Dr. iur.) was conferred on him by the University of Berne in 2003 with the distinction “magna cum laude”.
Erik has been working as a Senior Legal Adviser in the General Secretariat of the International Rail Transport Committee (CIT) since 2004. He was elected as Deputy Secretary General in 2011. He is chairman of the CIT/OSJD CIM/SMGS Legal and Expert Group and of the CIT Working group on Multimodality. He was chairman of the UNECE Informal Group of Experts on Unified Railway Law and is a member of various working groups and committees of the CIT, of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) in Brussels, of the International Union of Railways (UIC) in Paris and of the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) in Berne.
Erik was formerly a lawyer in the legal department of Caritas Schweiz having been an academic assistant and Senior researcher at the Institute for European and International Economic Law at the University of Berne and a Project Manager at the World Trade Institute in Berne. He led projects for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in the Central Asian Republics and for the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe (SPSEE) in the countries of South-Eastern Europe. In 2004, he was an intern in the Cabinet of the Advocate General Juliane Kokott at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
Erik is a Lecturer in European and International Rail Transport Law at the University of Berne since 2010 and Visiting lecturer in Rail Transport Law at Université Lumière Lyon2 since 2015. From 2001 to 2005 he was Secretary of the Swiss section of the European Community Studies Association (ECSA Suisse).
Erik Evtimov is married and has two sons.