Tonight we have brought high strategy and culture together.
Some 50 students from the Advanced Command and Staff Course (ACSC) run by the UK Defence Academy are in town to learn about Hungary – including students from Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the UAE and Yemen. We’ve just held a networking event which a number of my fellow Ambassadors and fellow diplomats have attended and the ACSC students have an intensive programme of briefings – including in Parliament and the Ministries for Foreign Affairs and Defence during the rest of the week.
But a particular treat was to be able to combine this with a visit by Sir James and Lady Galway to Budapest. Last night the man with the golden flute performed with and conducted the Budapest Concerto orchestra in a superb and much appreciated concert of Mozart, Mercadante and Schubert music and much more. So when he and Lady Galway could come along to the British Residence and interact with our ASCS guests and contacts from Hungarian society we were pleased to be able to facilitate this mix of hard and soft diplomacy.