Roundtable with HE Mr David Graeme Blunt on Croatia's Accession to EU

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:45 in Discussion Forums

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HE Mr David Graeme Blunt

Where: Dialogue Society, London
with HE Mr David Graeme Blunt, The British Ambassador to Croatia

Biography

Born 1953 in Sussex, UK. He graduated in 1975 from Manchester University with a First Class BA Hons degree in Geography where he also took French and German as subsidiary subjects. He taught briefly before joining the Diplomatic Service in 1978.

His first assignment was in the FCO, working on UK - Irish issues. Then followed postings to Vienna (1979-83) and Peking (1983-87) where he worked on the UK’s Hong Kong negotiations team and was subsequently heavily involved in preparing HM The Queen’s 1986 State Visit. He was in London 1987-89 working on defence policy and as Head of the FCO’s France/Benelux Unit before his posting to Canberra (1989-94) where he became Head of the British High Commission’s Political Section. On his return to London, he worked as Director of BBC Monitoring Service Review before leading an FCO Management Consultancy Team. He was then Deputy Head of Mission at Oslo (1997-2001) and Deputy Governor of Gibraltar (2002-2005).

Most recently, as Head of the British Office, subsequently the UK’s first ambassador, in Kosovo January 2006 – April 2008, he has been strongly engaged with the status process which culminated in Kosovo’s co-ordinated declaration of independence in February 2008.

He speaks near native Norwegian, good German and French and can read Spanish. He also speaks Albanian and is now learning Croatian.

He enjoys choral music and has always been a keen sportsman.

He is married to Geirid who is Norwegian. They have three sons: Marcus (1982), Alexander (1984) and Freddie (1990).

Participants

HE Mr David Blunt CVO, The British Ambassador to Croatia
Tony Lloyd MP, House of Commons
HE Dr Dragisa Burzan, The Ambassador of Montenegro to the UK
HE Dr Ion Jinga, The Ambassador of Romania to the UK
HE Dr Ivica Tomić, The Ambassador of Croatia to the UK
HE Iztok Jarc, The Ambassador of Slovenia to the UK
HE Dr Muhamet Hamiti, The Ambassador of the Republic of Kosovo to the UK
HE Mr Lyubomir Kyuchukov, The Ambassador of Bulgaria to the UK
HE Mr Zef Mazi, The Ambassador of Albania to the UK
HE Mrs Jadranka Negodic, The Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the UK
HE Mrs Marija Efremova, The Ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia to the UK
Jacek Gajewski, 1st Counsellor Head of the Political Section-Embassy of the Republic of Poland
Lucy Cowan, Head of the Croatian Desk-FCO
Elizabeth Burdett, Research Analyst (EU)- FCO
Susan Laffey, Research Analyst (EU)- FCO
Tim Judah, The Balkans Correspondent for The Economist
Professor Keith Pilbeam, Professor of International Economics and Finance- City University
Dr Adam Fagan, Reader in Politics, Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London
Dr Chiara De Franco, Research Associate, Department of War Studies- King's College London
Dr Stefanos Katsikas, Lecturer at the Department of History-Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr William Bartlett, Senior Research Fellow in the Political Economy of South East Europe - European Institute-LSE
Daniel Korski, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations
Ozcan Keles, Executive Director-Dialogue Society
Ilknur Kahraman, Co-director-Dialogue Society
Dr Cem Erbil, Academic Coordinator-Dialogue Society