René Smits is professor emeritus of the Law of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). After his studies of law and sociology at the Vrije Universiteit, he worked (1977-2001) at De Nederlandsche Bank (the Dutch central bank), where he has been general counsel, and (2001-2024) in various legal capacities at the Dutch Competition Authority (currently ACM). He wrote the first English-language legal analysis of the ECB: The European Central Bank – Institutional Aspects (PhD, 1997). He has been a member of the European Central Bank’s Administrative Board of Review (2014-2024) and an assessor at the Belgian Competition Authority (2013-2020).

He currently is a consultant on EMU law, EU banking regulation, sustainable finance and financial sanctions. Smits is a member of the Committee on International Monetary Law of the International Law Association (MOCOMILA) and a P.R.I.M.E. Finance expert.

René Smits is responsible for an online overview of case law on banking supervision by the European Central Bank and resolution by the Single Resolution Board: The Banking Union and Union Courts, providing transparency about judicial challenges against the ECB and the SRB.

René is married with Anneke de Blieck; they have two children and five grandchildren.

René Smits wrote the first English-language legal analysis of the ECB: The European Central Bank – Institutional Aspects (PhD, 1997) and many more legal contributions. Among his recent academic publications: Bank Holding Company Regulation in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa: A Comparative Inventory and a Call for Pan-African Regulation, co-authored with John Taylor, Journal of Banking Regulation, Volume 18, 2017, 1-36, and at SSRN; The invisible core of values in the European integration project, From the Board (editorial), Legal Issues of Economic Integration 45, no. 3 (2018): 221-228, available here; Towards a single standard of professional secrecy for supervisory authorities – A reform proposal, co-authored with Nikolai Badenhoop, published in: (2019) 44 E.L. Rev. 295-318, also at SSRN; SSM and the SRB accountability at European level: room for improvements? Banking Union Scrutiny paper for the European Parliament’s Economic Governance Support Unit (EGOV), April 2020, available here; The ECB's mandate in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss, 2022, at SSRN, chapter 8 in: René Smits (editor), Sustainable Finance and Climate Change - Law and Regulation, Edward Elgar Publishing 2024; The ECB’s E-Road ahead, chapter 17 in:  The ‘New’ European Central Bank: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead, Thomas Beukers, Diane Fromage and Giorgio Monti (editors), 2022; Financial sanctions: the development of an EU practice, at SSRN, chapter 3 in International Sanctions: Monetary and Financial Law Perspectives, a book by members of the Committee on International Monetary Law of the International Law Association (MOCOMILA), edited by Chiara Zilioli, General Counsel, European Central Bank; Professor of Law, Goethe University Frankfurt, Régis Bismuth, Professor of Law, Science Po Law School and Luc Thévenoz, Professor of Law, University of Geneva; Reflections at this juncture, paper for the International Colloquium in memoriam of Luís Silva Morais Capital Markets and Banking Unions, Law and the Courts (Challenges and Perspectives), delivered at the Università di Bologna, 13 February 2025.