31st March 2011
I have in my hands Hungary’s newest media product – hot off the press. It’s the high quality, information-packed, inaugural edition of the popular BBC “History” Magazine in Hungarian, which I helped launch at a press conference this morning. Congratulations to the Kossuth Kiado Publishing House for bringing it here. The BBC brand continues to […]
24th March 2011
The Informal Environment Council taking place in Gödöllő on 25-26 March has an exciting agenda even if it doesn’t have a snappy title. This is for several reasons. The topics for discussion are water and climate policy – an appropriate combination from Hungary’s point of view. Because focusing on water issues seems to be able […]
23rd March 2011
On 3 March a new Alliance for Future Generations came together in the UK. The trigger for its formation was an inspirational visit by Hungary’s Ombudsman for Future Generations – a frequent partner of ours on environmental issues – to the UK in February 2010. A presentation he made at the British Ministry of Justice […]
17th March 2011
A few weeks ago I promised that we would be marking 500 days to go to the 2012 Olympics on 16 March. The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that this date was in fact 499 days from the Olympics (and 532 from the Paralympics). The reason was that 15 March is an important national […]
13th March 2011
Clearly energy will be a prominent feature of our work in connection with Hungary’s EU Presidency throughout the spring. The Commission published its Low Carbon Roadmap on 8 March and UK diplomatic efforts are now focussed on raising Europe’s ambitions to build a low carbon economy. This effort is especially relevant in Central and Eastern […]
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9th March 2011
The UK is strongly committed to the European Union’s enlargement process. And so on 9 March the UK’s Minister for Europe David Lidington will give a keynote speech on EU Enlargement in the Hague. We are not only convinced about the value of enlargement but have played a leading role in driving it through. We […]
2nd March 2011
On 1 March the Welsh flag was flying outside the British Embassy as we marked St David’s Day. And several staff were wearing dragon or daffodil badges in their lapels to recognise the patron saint of Wales. (I even persuaded the Australian Ambassador to wear a daffodil alongside his kangaroo.) The date marks the anniversary […]
25th February 2011
Earlier this week I sat with the UK Sports Minister and leading members of the Hungarian Olympics and Paralympics Committees. Hugh Robertson was visiting to attend the Sports Ministerial Informal meeting at Gödöllő and at the end of his programme made time to meet our partners and ask what we could do to help them […]
16th February 2011
Last night the Embassy was full of tour operators, agencies and attraction owners from Hungary and the UK, but also from Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia. They had spent the day in a seminar and tailored meetings organised by Visit Britain – the organisation that markets Britain overseas and develops the […]
11th February 2011
Presidency work at the British Embassy in Budapest is not confined to formal Presidency calendar events. We are also assisting with the intensive bilateral engagement of UK Ministers and senior officials with their Hungarian counterparts. Thanks to the heightened UK interest in all things Hungarian these days, these exchanges often go beyond immediate EU policy […]