27th July 2011
Today, 27 July, there is one year to go before the Olympic and Paralympic Games are held in London in 2012. President Rogge of the International Olympic Committee will be in London to issue an invitation to Romania and all other countries in the world to send their teams to compete in the London Olympic […]
19th July 2011
Guest blog: Deputy Head of Mission Esther Blythe attended last week the start of a three-day workshop hosted by the Romanian Foreign Ministry for Tunisian and Egyptian officials on the experience of democratic transition – focusing in particular on the practical challenges of managing the first post-transition elections. Here is what Esther thought of the […]
11th July 2011
It’s easy to see international cooperation in black and white terms: either you’re “in” a particular body or organisation or you’re “out”. This is often tied to “zero-sum” thinking, which argues that something which is good for one person or country has to be bad for another. In reality, however, international relations includes a vast […]
11th July 2011
I was in Bulgaria last week, comparing notes with colleagues in our Embassy in Sofia. Asset recovery is an issue in both Romania and Bulgaria at the moment. The Bulgarian government has developed a new draft law on Asset Forfeiture which is now being debated in the Parliament. Last month the European Commission for Democracy […]
7th July 2011
Guest blog: My wife, Linda McLachlan, visited recently a pet therapy project taking place in Voluntari, on the outskirts of Bucharest. The idea behind it is simple yet impressive – bring vulnerable children and mistreated animals together to help each other overcome their unfortunate past experiences. ‘It’s long been argued that you can judge a […]
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30th June 2011
Britain’s new Bribery Act comes into force tomorrow, 1 July. From tomorrow, British nationals and British companies are subject to new rules which tighten and extend legislation governing their activities overseas. The Bribery Act makes it illegal to give or receive a bribe anywhere in the world. It also requires companies to take steps to […]
27th June 2011 Bucharest, Romania
European leaders meeting in Brussels last week agreed that the regulatory burden on SMEs needs to be further reduced, something that the UK has very strongly argued for in its agenda for growth. The European Commission will therefore undertake to assess the impact of future regulations on micro enterprises and to screen the acquis to […]
25th June 2011
When President Basescu and David Cameron met in Downing Street on 6 June they agreed to work together to promote new growth in the European economy, including by reducing the regulatory burden on business. We took the first steps to implement this agenda at the European Council yesterday. Romania and the UK worked together to […]
16th June 2011 Bucharest, Romania
As economic recovery and competitiveness are at the heart of the European agenda, the British Embassy plans to run a media training programme on this heavyweight issue in the autumn. The idea is to bring a senior British business journalist to Romania to share from his/her experience in reporting and commenting about the challenges and […]
Read more on Meet a Brit – media training coming soon | Reply
2nd June 2011 Bucharest, Romania
Guest blogger: Irina Niţă, Director, ACCEPT Association Several years ago I overheard someone talking during a coffee break, at a NGOs conference: ‘ACCEPT makes so much fuss, for what? For the less than 50 gay people who live in Romania!?’ Today there are still journalists who write about ‘hundreds of homosexuals’ living in Romania. Psychologists […]