British Ambassador In Budapest Looks Ahead At 2009

In the spring, it is said, a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. In the British Embassy, they turn to our Business Planning process. Why does this process come to a head in March, rather than at the end of the Calendar Year? Well, largely because the UK tax year starts in April.

Historically it did so because that's when the snow cleared and the King's tax inspectors could get on the road and start collecting and we have never changed since. Current weather conditions in the UK remind us of how difficult things could get in a really bad winter. Hence, too, the phrase "frozen assets". (No, not really.)

In many ways this Embassy is like a medium-sized company, without the bottom line but with a budget to which we must keep. I am ultimately responsible for delivering our Business Plan - agreeing it with Managers in London and accounting for it at the end of our Financial Year. My performance - and that of the post as a whole - will be judged against this yardstick.

So over the next few weeks we will be putting on our thinking caps and considering what our priorities are, what activity we should carry forward and what new initiatives we should launch. It is a competitive process, because resources are limited and we and our Embassies in the region are all bidding for the same pot of money. The more imaginative we are, within the framework of the British Foreign Office's priorities, the better our budget is likely to be next year.

These days foreign policy - especially towards an EU partner and NATO ally - is relatively less about bilateral issues and protocol-type matters. It is much more about shared concerns with which we have to grapple in the modern world - the economic crisis, energy security, climate change, institutional change, human rights, international development and so on. It is safe to say that much of our future activity will revolve around such issues.

I would like in the coming year to see Hungary and the UK making common cause on a wider range of EU issues - we clearly already see many issues similarly (EU expansion, the European Neighbourhood Policy, more investment in R&D and more Structural and Cohesion Funding for New Member States) but on some others we disagree. In NATO we will continue to collaborate in several fields, such as our mutual contribution to Afghanistan.

And we will continue to provide a range of traditional services to customers - consular support (including passports), visas and commercial. The latter - support for UK exporters to Hungary, certain UK investors in Hungary and inward investors to the UK - takes up some 20 % of my time. Much of this is about lobbying for an improved business environment here - not least improved transparency.

Of course government-to-government contacts are an important part of our business and we will hope to see visits by British Ministers and senior officials in support of these. But I also expect to see a continuing growth in our contact with a range of other stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations. And I want to see us communicating our views about the UK and our work here more directly to Hungarian civil society and individual citizens, through a variety of means - interviews, chat-rooms, speeches, the British Embassy website, and so on.

We have just launched a series of seminars with the Central European University on the credit crunch and related resource issues - if you are interested you can find out more and engage in the debate via our website.

Also we will continue to host exhibitions, seminars and presentations in support of our Business Plan and invite a wide range of visitors to these. For example, our exhibition of photographs of "Muslims in Britain" - which illustrates tolerance and cooperation - is still touring a range of centres around the country.

I am always very conscious that I am Britain's Ambassador to Hungary, not just Budapest - however pleasant it may be to live in this exciting and inspiring city."

XpatLoop.com wishes to thank Greg Dorey
Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador
British Embassy
Budapest