29th September 2011
I was surprised and very touched to be presented today with a annual Prize for an Outstanding Contribution to the Cause of Women’s Equality by the Association for Women’s Career Development in Hungary. The prize is given to those who the Association sees as most actively promoting the issue of gender equality. Because I was […]
27th September 2011
Some weeks ago I wrote about several of my colleagues’ swimming accomplishments at Lake Valence. Now, inspired by the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, they have been entering foot and cycling races too. On 4 September, 3 colleagues competed in the Budapest half-marathon. One male colleague ran alone, and two other female colleagues ran in […]
27th September 2011
Negotiations at a summit later this week will revolve around the question of “how European is Ukraine”? It sounds a bit academic, since anyone looking at a map can see that Ukraine is a European country. But negotiations at the Eastern Partnership Summit on 29-30 September will revolve around the question not of geography but […]
26th September 2011
The UK’s Business Secretary Vince Cable (photo) will be visiting Romania this week. This is a follow-up to President Basescu’s visit to London in June when he agreed with David Cameron to strengthen commercial ties, and to join forces in Brussels to promote EU growth. Vince Cable’s visit comes at a critical moment for the […]
26th September 2011 Geneva, Switzerland
The second week of the September Human Rights Council session was a typically frantic affair, as delegations scrambled to finalise the resolutions that they would present before Thursday’s deadline. Getting resolutions in tends to be a quite scrappy business, more like a school sports day three-legged race than a gracious Olympic sprint. Countries have quite […]
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26th September 2011
Last week I attended the annual Strategic Dialogue talks with senior officials from the Foreign Office, Defence and other agencies, and their Australian counterparts. They took place at the Foreign Secretary’s historic London residence in Carlton Gardens. We covered a very broad range of foreign policy issues from Asia to Afghanistan, the Middle East and […]
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24th September 2011
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 […]
22nd September 2011
I was in the Pauline-Carmelite Monastery at Sopronfalva this morning. Lovingly and beautifully restored through the vision of Gabor Kovacs (KOGART), it is now a hotel, conference facility and meditation centre. It’s an excellent example of how a cultural heritage conservation project can be integrated into a local community. But today the monastery was the […]
22nd September 2011
I have just returned from a short visit to London, where I took the opportunity to meet Chris Bain, the Director of CAFOD, the principal Catholic charity in England and Wales (its main partners in the United Kingdom are SCIAF in Scotland, and Trocaire in Northern Ireland – which also operates in the Republic of […]
22nd September 2011 London, UK
This was my first visit to Portugal as Europe Minister. As well as being one of Europe (and the world’s) oldest alliances, the relationship between the UK and Portugal is based on close trade and economic links. During my visit I was pleased to meet several top Portuguese investors all of whom have interests in […]