DIPLO Blog

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 5th August 2020 Vienna, Austria COVID-19 vaccine developed in Austria – produced in Scotland “When we started to develop our vaccine candidate we needed to push; now there is a massive pull from governments around the world,” says Thomas Lingelbach, CEO of Vienna-based pharmaceutical company Valneva, during my visit to his HQ at the Vienna Bio Center. Work is intense at Valneva when we visit. The Austro-French vaccine company has been selected by the UK Government to deliver up to 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. The Department for International Trade (DIT) team here at the embassy supported Valneva from an early stage of the process. The vaccine will be manufactured at Valneva’s site in Livingstone, Scotland. While Valneva’s staff in Vienna are working around the clock to develop a vaccine for COVID-19,..

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 5th August 2020 Vienna, Austria COVID-19 vaccine developed in Austria – produced in Scotland “When we started to develop our vaccine candidate we needed to push; now there is a massive pull from governments around the world,” says Thomas Lingelbach, CEO of Vienna-based pharmaceutical company Valneva, during my visit to his HQ at the Vienna Bio Center. Work is intense at Valneva when we visit. The Austro-French vaccine company has been selected by the UK Government to deliver up to 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. The Department for International Trade (DIT) team here at the embassy supported Valneva from an early stage of the process. The vaccine will be manufactured at Valneva’s site in Livingstone, Scotland. While Valneva’s staff in Vienna are working around the clock to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, ..

Skip to content Bob Last Deputy Head, UK Mission Political Team 30th July 2020 Geneva, Switzerland Councils Completed These are such strange days. We still don’t know if this will prove to be a painful but relatively short-lived episode of global distress or if we’re in this for the much longer haul. Will we look back on this as a defining moment of international cooperation to overcome one of the greatest health challenges in human history? Or will future evolutionary palaeontologists look back on this period with fascination, as the point at which humans began to develop opposable digits on their elbows to overcome tricky door handles without using their hands? Since the Council went on hold in March, the world has become so profoundly different in so many ways that I’ve been finding any element of pre-COVID familiarity quite comforting. So having the Council go about its business over the last two months has been reassuringly exhausting. For those who haven’t been following closely..

Skip to content Miriam Escofet 25th July 2020 Painting Her Majesty Image ©Aliona Adrianova During my first meeting with Foreign Office Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Simon McDonald in March 2019, when we discussed ideas for the portrait of The Queen that he wanted to commission, I was delighted to hear that he wanted it to feel intimate. He wanted to express Her Majesty’s humanity, rather than creating a more traditional, grand, regal representation. Her Majesty has a close and longstanding relationship with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Her reign is already the longest of any monarch in British history, taking in 14 different Prime Ministers and 13 US Presidents. The Queen has received thousands of foreign Ambassadors and she has personal experience of nearly every country that the UK has bilateral relations with, having undertaken State Visits overseas to over 100 countries. The Queen has hosted 111 incoming State Visits during her reign, from 62 different countries to the UK...

Skip to content Aidan Liddle UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament Part of Conference on Disarmament 7th July 2020 Geneva, Switzerland Disarmament blog: what’s the point of the Conference on Disarmament? The Conference on Disarmament resumed its 2020 session on Tuesday, after a break of 122 days. (We had been supposed to meet a week earlier, but technical problems with the new remote participation platform meant the meeting was cancelled at the eleventh hour.) But did anyone miss the CD while it was silent? Should it just have stayed that way? First, the case against. While the track record of the CD and its predecessors include the three main WMD treaties, amongst others, it hasn’t launched a new negotiation since the CTBT was concluded in 1996. Every disarmament treaty since then – the prohibitions on land mines and cluster munitions, the Arms Trade Treaty, and, yes, the TPNW – has been negotiated elsewhere. Far from fulfilling its mandate as “t..

Skip to content Simon Cleobury UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament 7th July 2020 Geneva, Switzerland Blog: Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention goes virtual It was with some trepidation that I turned up at the offices of the Geneva Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) for the Opening Session of the first ever virtual intersessional meetings of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. Would the new platform, with its interpretation into the UN official languages, actually work? Would there be endless delays whilst colleagues tried to log in? I am pleased to say that, most of the time, the passing of the floor to speakers and the interpretation all worked well, allowing for the smooth running of meetings. There were a few technical problems for some participants, but that was to be expected. The main thing is that we were able to make these meetings happen, something that was by no means certain given the Covid-19 restrictions. At the Opening Session, I ..

Skip to content Dragana Drndarevska Legal adviser, Coalition Margins Guest blogger for UK in North Macedonia Part of UK in North Macedonia 7th July 2020 Skopje, North Macedonia Despite all the obstacles the fight for LGBTI equality continues Photo credit: Vancho Dzambaski- Pride Parade 2019Last year, a Pride Parade took place in Skopje for the first time. The Parade was a protest and shall remain so until LGBTI people are able to enjoy all human rights and society is fully liberated. However, last year there were several reasons to celebrate. The Law on Prevention and Protection against Discrimination was adopted after long postponement, guarantying LGBTI people equality in every area of living. In addition, the Law on Criminal Procedure was amended with respect to hate crimes, thus providing LGBTI people explicit protection against violence and other hate crimes for the first time. The success was the result of the efforts invested by LGBTI organizations and their partners from civil..

Skip to content Robin Barnett Ambassador to Ireland, Dublin Part of Coronavirus (COVID-19) 3rd July 2020 Dublin, Ireland Guest blog on UK-Ireland connections from Catherine Page, a deputy to Ambassador Robin BarnettBy endurance we conquer – what Shackleton can teach us todayWe have all had to find sources of inspiration to help us in the last few months. Mine came on one of many local lockdown walks in Dublin, when I passed a house with a plaque to “the Antarctic Explorer and Leader of Men”, Sir Ernest Shackleton, whose childhood home it had been. I have been inspired by Shackleton for a long time, since I was 17 and went on an expedition which re-traced his journey to the Antarctic island of South Georgia. But it felt particularly appropriate to find him again now – to be reminded of his story of grit and determination at a time when we have all been searching for these too, and to recall his family motto: “by endurance we conquer”. Because if I had to sum up 2020 so far in one word ..

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 3rd July 2020 Vienna, Austria Online Q&A for UK nationals in Austria – Monday 6 July Do you have questions about how the UK’s exit from the EU affects you? The embassy is running an online Q&A session on Monday 6 July. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the team here and colleagues in London have continued to work closely with the Austrian authorities to ensure rights of British citizens living in Austria to continue to live and work here are protected, and any actions you need to take are communicated clearly and in good time. The Austrian government have not yet announced the exact details of the registration process you will need to follow, but the actions you can already take are on our living in Austria guide. Please sign up for email updates on that page. The Q&A will be on our embassy facebook page. On Monday 6..

Skip to content Matt Field British Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina 19th June 2020 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Digital Transformation in the Public Sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina In the time of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, virtual reality, big data, and many more are now transforming societies, economies, institutions and businesses across the globe. Governments worldwide are strategically leveraging new technologies to fundamentally improve policies, decision-making, public services and systems. Yet the full potential of digital government worldwide, including in Bosnia and Herzegovina, remains largely untapped. Global practice shows that to build a public sector fit for the future, governments must “reinvent” themselves. Digital transformation is not just about new technologies, but requires an overhaul of organizational structures, work processes, skills, culture and mindset. This applies not only to governme..