Ambassador's diary

23 April, 2012 

Today is St George's Day, patron saint of England. Our Deputy Ambassador, Martin Kay, has organised a work event to mark the occasion. Please see our Facebook site for more details of our events.

Another important day this month is International Roma Day, celebrated on 8 April. This also has a British connection, as the event was founded in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when the first gathering of Roma from many different countries took place, in Orpington in the South of England. In Slovakia the date was celebrated by a seminar which I attended, organised by a Roma Member of Parliament in Slovakia.

This month began with the lighting of the Olympic flame in Bratislava;  a series of sporting events followed in preparation for the London Olympics.  One of those events included having the British fencing team here in Bratislava for the Olympic qualifiers. And a personal highlight for me was participating in the Olympic torch relay with the elite runners at the Bratislava marathon!

On 10 April we had a virtuoso performance by Cambridge University Jazz Orchestra, visiting from the UK. 21 students from a range of Cambridge colleges visited Bratislava. They produced an outstanding show including pieces composed by the UK National Youth Jazz Orchestra and the British jazz musician Gareth Lockrane. 

In mid-April I attended the Global Security Forum which took place in Bratislava. Over the course of 3 days a series of very interesting discussions took place between visiting Presidents and Ministers from the region. The United Kingdom had several representatives at the conference, including a visiting senior British official from the Ministry of Defence.

Another visitor from the UK this month, Aidan Liddle, came from the Europe Directorate of the Foreign Office in London. Aidan had meetings with the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with Slovak NGOs.

One of this month's major British Council activities was a Fashion Business Event in Bratislava. The idea was to help young Slovak fashion designers to find a foothold in the international market. The UK is a world leader in the Creative Economy and UK designers and events such as London Fashion Week are well known. The British Council is a founding member of the Slovak Fashion Council and British fashion expert Sally Denton attended the event to help give individual advice to young designers. The British Council also set up the Young Creative Designer Award to help encourage young Slovak entrepreneurs in this field.

This month as always we carried out a lot of work in support of commercial activity, supporting Anglo-Slovak companies which help create jobs in Slovakia. And this month's visit outside the capital was to the town of Piestany, where a British company has invested in a Slovak enterprise, creating many local jobs and restoring beautiful historic buildings.

Also this month we delivered pensions from the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund and the British Soldiers Charity to Slovaks who were Western Front veterans of World War Two. We are very grateful to the brave Slovaks who fought in the Second World War, and the sacrifices that they and their families made, which helped us to have the freedoms we enjoy today.

 

28 March, 2012

This month began with St David's Day (the National Day of Wales) on 1 March, and we held a celebratory event. Welsh food was served, Welsh-style harp music was played and the Welsh Corgi Society of Slovakia was an unexpected hit with all our guests!
 
The Slovak elections took place on 10 March. At the time of writing a new government has not yet been officially appointed, and we await with interest what the outcome will be.

We had a variety of visitors from the UK this month. They included Sir Suma Chakrabarti from the Ministry of Justice; Olympics and travel specialists from the UK (see below) and a group of social workers who worked with a Slovak homeless charity - Depaul Slovensko. 

One of our UK Trade and Investment events this month included a very successful tourism event organised jointly with the Slovak Tourist Board, looking at opportunities for promoting environmentally-friendly tourism in Slovakia.
 
This month's regional visit was to Martin, where with EU colleagues we looked at promoting business links and were very impressed by the good transparency record of the local authorities there.
 
On the same theme, we organised an event in the Residence this week with the Directors of leading companies in Slovakia to look at ways of promoting transparency and preventing corruption.  This event was organised in tandem with the Pontis Foundation. 
 
We also had a lot of consular work this month, looking after British citizens. See the details of our Travel advice and the services we provide.
 
A highlight this month was the British School baccalaureat event, with an excellent art exhibition.
 
Last but not least this week we organised an event with the British Chamber of Commerce to celebrate the approaching Olympics.  The Slovak Olympic Committee, Slovak Olympic team members, Paralympians, representatives of Slovak sports charities and other famous faces from the world of sport were there.   A representative from the company which designed the new Olympic site in London gave a presentation on the positive social and environmental legacy of the London Olympics.  And one of our British staff, Sarabjit Singh, helped organise an Olympic exhibition which will be touring Slovak schools and other venues. Please see our Facebook site for more details. 

 

29 February, 2012 

We started and ended this month with Scottish themes - we held a Scottish ceilidh at the beginning of the month, at which we also presented the GREAT campaign, and were honoured to have Slovak Olympians and Paralympians among our guests.  And at the end of the month we were very pleased to host a visitor from the Scottish Government.

Other UK visitors to Slovakia in February included the Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke. Themes of judicial reform came up in a number of events we were involved in this month, including an excellent seminar organised by the NGO Transparency International.

Another NGO our Embassy is very pleased to support is the Equality team. They reported on the successful integration of Roma in British schools, in a recent seminar which I attended in Presov (Eastern Slovakia). British teachers also attended and welcomed the opportunity to meet their Slovak counterparts. There was also an excellent presentation by a British police officer of Roma origin, who made a really positive impression on his audience.  

While in Presov, we also celebrated the 5th anniversary of the British Centre there. They have a very good library and can provide expert advice and support to those who are planning to study in the UK.

As always, our Embassy took part in various activities this month to support British companies who invest in Slovakia. One of these British companies also hosted a major event this week to encourage young Slovak entrepreneurs.

Today we attended an event organised by the Slovak Olympic Committee. They showed our London 2012 film, and well-known Slovak TV presenters modelled the Olympic sportswear designs. Lots of top Slovak sportsmen and women have qualified for the Olympics this year, so Slovakia will be sending a great Olympic team to London!

 

12 January, 2012 

2012 is an historic year for Britain. It marks 60 years of the reign of the Queen. Still carrying out official duties at the age of 85, the Queen has worked with 12 British Prime Ministers, starting with Winston Churchill. Her Diamond Jubilee will be celebrated in the summer.

The Queen is Head of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 54 independent countries. The Commonwealth is a remarkable international organisation, spanning every geographical region, religion and culture. It exists to foster international co-operation and trade links between people all over the world. The Commonwealth symbolises "the transformation of the Crown from an emblem of dominion into a symbol of free and voluntary association. In all history this has no precedent." More details can be found on the page of The Commonwealth.

These links affect our Consular responsibilities too. For example, the British Embassy in Bratislava on occasion assists Australian, New Zealand and other Commonwealth citizens (who do not have local representation in Bratislava) in consular matters.

The Royal family undertake public duties, including support for 3000 charities. The Queen carries out around 430 official engagements per year. Details of these can be found on the website of the British Monarchy. 

The Queen stills travels regularly, and not only to the countries of which she is Head of State. She travelled to Slovakia in 2008, and has very fond memories of her time here.

The other major event in 2012 for the UK is that the Olympics are coming to Britain. London will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948. Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games is an honour, and we look forward to welcoming the world’s top sportspeople, including the team from Slovakia.

The 2012 Games are aiming to be the first "green" Olympics. After the Games, the Olympic Park will be transformed into one of the largest urban parks created in Europe for more than 150 years. More details are on London 2012 website. 

The London 2012 Festival – 12 weeks of cultural events - will follow the Olympic Games and we will be honouring British literary figures such as Shakespeare and Dickens, as well as art, dance and music.

So we have much to look forward to. Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.

 

23 December, 2011 

I am writing this on the day of Vaclav Havel’s funeral, a day of mourning in Slovakia as well as in the Czech Republic, for their former President. It is a day of great sadness. But it is also a day of great hope, because so much of Havel’s work lives on. He led the democratic and human rights movements which helped transform the former state of Czechoslovakia; and for this he will never be forgotten.

On the subject of human rights, some of the projects with which our Embassy has been involved in this month include the Centre for Civil and Human Rights and the Centre for Sustainable Development – ETP Slovakia. Both NGOs run Roma inclusion projects. One example is of a school in Kent in the UK, where children of Roma origin are as well-integrated as children from any other background. Through the auspices of the NGOs, the school offers training opportunities for teachers from Slovakia, to see if there are any best practice teaching methods which can be shared between the two different schooling systems (it works both ways, with UK teachers also learning from their Slovak counterparts).

Another project which the Embassy has supported this month is an event to train social workers to help protect people against the risk of human trafficking. This pernicious crime is something that both the UK and Slovak governments are very concerned about and we are working together to try and combat it. The Slovak authorities have already done a great deal of work on this, and recently our embassy has funded the production of information films which can be shown to young people or anyone at risk of human trafficking. I travelled to the East of Slovakia this month and had an opportunity to talk to those involved in the training. They were a very impressive and dedicated group of people.

The final project I’d like to mention in this month’s diary is the Carpathian Development Institute. Their slogan is “know more, do more and be more” and they work on environmental projects including climate change mitigation, tying in with such initiatives as green tourism, where Slovakia has wonderful potential for economic development without harming the environment.

Other highlights this month included an Embassy Christmas lunch for Western Front Veterans and widows from Slovakia. We also had a Carol-Singing session in Slovak and English, organised by the British Council. Our thanks to the British Council team for organising this. Our thanks also to the British School in Bratislava, which organised an excellent Christmas concert, with delightful performances by their young pupils.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

30 November, 2011

St Andrew's Day was heralded by a number of Scottish-related events here. I am pleased to be partly of Scottish descent, and I attended an event kindly organised by a member of the Scottish community who runs a Slovak-British company here. At the same time, a British author of mixed Scottish and Barbadian origin did a book reading at Comenius University for Slovak students. And a member of our UKTI team organised a trade visit to Scotland this week. Slovakia and the United kingdom both have a significant Celtic heritage; another of the similarities between our two countries.

This has been another busy month. One of our recent projects has been run by the NGOs  Fair Play Alliance and Transparency International Slovensko. They launched a website called Open Portals (Otvorene Zmluvy in Slovak) which opens up state contracts to public view. The portal  access ties in with very positive measures by Slovak government ministries to publish their contracts on a central website Central Register of Contracts.  In the UK in a similar spirit there is an Open Government website. This provides a searchable site  which makes it easier for people to understand how government works and how government policies are made. It also contains lots of useful information so that taxpayers can see how their money is spent on things like schools, hospitals and libraries. The Slovak website Otvorene Zmluvy gives users the ability to search through state contracts by date, cost, issuing ministry or subject. It also has an automated comparison tool for comparing different contracts and highlighting anomalies. It thus enables ordinary citizens to be more engaged in matters of state which affect them, which is very positive news. The project is still very much in its trial stage and feedback from members of the public is welcomed to help them create a final version which will satisfy users' requirements.

Another project we have supported in Slovakia this month is the Human Rights film festival Jeden Svet (One World). There are several films made by British film-makers which will be shown in this festival in Bratislava, covering Human Rights  issues in countries as varied as Belarus, Burma and Afghanistan. The festival is running over the next few days so there are still opportunities to see these films if you haven't done so already.

A very important event for us this month was Remembrance Sunday, where we remembered all those who have sacrificed their lives in war. This event was organised jointly with the Slovak Ministry of Defence – details are on their website. It was also a tremendous honour to have present some of those Slovaks and the families of Slovaks who had participated in the Battle of Britain during the Second World War. The stories of their bravery and the hardships they endured were deeply moving.

 

27 October, 2011

It is good to be back in Slovakia. I first came here before the Velvet Revolution, when I was working as an English teacher in a children's summer camp. I have returned to Slovakia many times since, on holiday with my family, and I have seen for myself the amazing transformation of this country during the course of that time. It is incredible what has been achieved here in such a short time. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to return here to work.

I'm writing this about one month after my arrival in Slovakia as British Ambassador. This month has seen an intensive array of interesting meetings and events. I have also been undertaking Slovak language training, which I have really enjoyed, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to do so. I will continue to study Slovak to try to deepen my knowledge of the traditions and culture of this fascinating country.

One of the things which has struck me since my arrival here is the sheer depth of relations between the United Kingdom and Slovakia. I have had the pleasure of meeting many people who have studied or worked in the UK. I have had meetings with many Anglo-Slovak companies which are creating many jobs in Slovakia and which continue to invest here. I have visited Slovak schools which are twinned with British schools, and theatre festivals involving British plays or actors. I have also been involved in the anniversary celebration of British Centres in Slovakia. These centres, located in Slovak libraries and co-funded by the British Council, provide a lending service of English-language books, both classic and contemporary. They also provide a wealth of advice for those planning to study at school or university in the UK.

A few days ago the British Embassy commemorated the lives of British airmen who died fighting the Nazis during the Second World War. 5 October was the anniversary of the shooting down of a British Wellington aircraft by the Nazis over the Danube near Cunovo in 1944. The memorial service for the airmen was a joint Anglo-Slovak occasion, and was symbolic of our countries' shared experiences during the Second World War. We were very proud that also attending the memorial was the British widow of a Slovak pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain. It is a great honour to be able to commemorate those who gave up their lives for our freedom.  We will never forget what they have done for us.

I thank the people of Slovakia again for their warm welcome. I welcome the close co-operation between our two countries, and I will continue to do all that I can to develop it further.