Hello again!

I was back in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London for a few days last week, together with all other UK Heads of Mission (i.e. Ambassadors and equivalents) for a Leadership Conference. This was an opportunity to be updated on our programmes and compare experiences with colleagues.

British diplomacy these days is less about protocol, ceremonial, receptions and negotiating secret documents behind closed doors (though we still do all of those things sometimes). It’s much more about taking forward policy on issues that really matter to the people who vote in our government – the economy, climate change, energy policy, security, counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation of weapons, resolving conflict and building effective international systems. And about delivering services through our Embassies and other missions – trade and investment, consular and visa services. These were the sorts of themes on which we focussed in London.

Within the European Union we are also changing our focus. The Lisbon Treaty is not yet behind us in the British Parliament, and the debate on adopting it continues. (In Hungary it passed through Parliament with enviable speed, but Members of Parliament in the UK are determined to scrutinise every passage of the associated legislation. This can be a helpful process in our system in ensuring the final product is sound.) But already we are thinking about how we move on from this concentration on internal institutional issues to make the EU truly global. It means working to ensure the EU is genuinely competitive in our modern world, but also how it can serve as an example to other countries in a variety of fields.

A few other things I’ve done in the past couple of weeks have struck me as worthwhile. First of all, speaking to Hungarian MBA graduates of Oxford Brookes University – a popular and successful educational institution in the UK – when they were presented with their degrees. I was hugely impressed at the quality of these students, who have all passed their MBAs while doing busy, full-time jobs at the same time. They have learnt skills that will be useful in any walk of life. And they are just the sort of disciplined, dedicated, hard-working people that Hungary needs as it passes through a difficult phase in its evolution.

Secondly, speaking at a workshop on energy efficiency and social housing to a small but important audience of practitioners working on these issues. If we are to deal with the huge challenges of climate change – from which Hungary could suffer worse than many countries as a result of its dependence on melting snow caps feeding the Danube – it is critically important to get local and national environment and energy policies in line with international initiatives. Making sure that new buildings are energy efficient and green can make a substantial contribution to this struggle. We need to get this right if our children are to have the future they deserve.

And, thirdly, spending time in the Origo guest chatroom on a Friday afternoon to engage with Hungarians interested in what the British Embassy is about – you can see the edited product at Origo. This was a new experience for me, but one I intend to repeat if the feedback is positive. I confess I had help with typing the answers - sadly my Hungarian isn’t yet good enough to do this without help. But I’m working on it!

Finally, for anyone interested in regional British issues, the “Budapest Sun” interviewed me recently about the Welsh national day (St David’s Day), which falls on 1 March. You can find this here: Flying the flag for Dewi Sant (by Robin Marshall, Budapest Sun Online), together with a photograph of the Welsh flag flying proudly outside the Embassy.

Greg Dorey

HM Ambassador
17 March 2008