4th August 2014
Budapest, Hungary
One of my main professional targets as the Business Champion of Emerging Europe is to help increase the flow of trade between the UK and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our economists reckon that there’s a potential of 20 billion Euros of business to be done if we could just get Central and Eastern European businessmen […]
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24th July 2013
Warsaw, Poland
On the road to Budapest; it’s the grand prix this weekend and we’ll be there. Thought we’d drop in to Krakow – along the route. Krakow is a GREAT City and also home to quite a number of big British investors – all recognisable names – Tesco, BP, Shell, HSBC. Yes the UK is big […]
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23rd July 2012
Dublin, Ireland
Sorry to have been off the air but I spent much of last week visiting Budapest and Bucharest in my role as Director of the Central European Network, which brings together nine Embassies in Central Europe. It was fascinating to compare the situation in Poland with the situations elsewhere in the area. There are many […]
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17th November 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Some of the things I get involved in doing seem particularly worthwhile. So it was great to be able to host and open a workshop on Theatre Sign-Language Interpreting today at the Embassy. The British Council first introduced this concept, to help deaf and hard of hearing Hungarians to enjoy the theatre more fully, a […]
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24th September 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Many important 20th anniversaries have been marked in Central and Eastern Europe recently. But so far no one has recalled that it is 20 years since the British Embassy in Budapest staged Alan Bennett’s “Habeas Corpus” to an ecstatic local audience. At that time there was a dearth of Englsh language theatre in Hungary. The […]
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15th September 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Today is International Day of Democracy. In the UK we believe that democracy rests on respect for every individual in society, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other status. In fact this forms an indivisible part of our foreign policy. Through the work of the FCO we support not only electoral processes but […]
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14th August 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The online version of Nepszabsag, one of Hungary’s broadsheets, want to do a video interview with me. The journalist is the same one who interviewed me a couple of years ago when we launched a “Music Against Racism” initiative at the Festival – it is still going strong, now with a Hungarian coordinator. The interview […]
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14th August 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
My day at the Sziget Festival started with participating in a press conference together with the Deputy Police Chief of Budapest. Our two British police officers, together with Netherlands, German and Polish counterparts, were present. I spoke about our long-standing bilateral police cooperation, going back to the early 1990’s. There was media interest in what […]
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13th August 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
This morning the British Embassy swimming team all successfully completed a 1500 metre crossing of Lake Velence (the third largest in Hungary) to promote the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games. Colleagues Andy, Kata, Melinda, Anna and Geory were joined by 2 Hungarian international paralympic swimmers, Tamas Toth and Judit Tarjanyi. Dani drove and took […]
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12th August 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
British Sea Power are on stage with some fir trees – not sure where they fit in, but that’s probably my ignorance. Earlier on we visited the Head of the new Tom Lantos Institute in Budapest (he was a Holocaust survivor and US Congressman and the Institute was launched by his family a few weeks […]
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