AUSTIN, Texas–The European Union’s ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Hugo Paemen, will speak on Nov. 17 at The University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. His topic is “The European Union and its Agenda for the Next Millennium: EU-US Partnership, EU Enlargement and the EURO.”
The European Union is an institutional framework for forging unity and cooperation among European countries. European Union membership includes 15 nations that act as a single trading market and will institute a single European currency, the EURO, on Jan. 1, 1999.
The 5 p.m. speech in Room 3.109 of the LBJ School’s Sid Richardson Hall is part of the LBJ School’s Eminent Speaker Series. The event is free and open to the public.
Paemen has served as head of the European Commission’s U.S. delegation since 1995. The position generally is regarded as the commission’s most prestigious overseas posting. Before that, he was the commission’s deputy director-general for external relations. In that role, he was a lead negotiator in the Uruguay Round world trade talks, forging the way toward creation of the World Trade Organization. Paemen, a native of Belgium, is widely credited with having helped to establish the global trading rules that emerged from that meeting. He is in Texas on a three-day tour to meet with business and political leaders, including Gov. George W. Bush.
As European Union ambassador, Paemen is credited with having created a dispute settlement mechanism to arbitrate world trade battles, including the U.S. Helms-Burton law that imposes sanctions on Europeans doing business in Cuba. He also will serve as a chief resource for U.S. businesses operating in Europe when the new EURO currency takes effect.
For additional information, contact the LBJ School European Union Fellow, Dr. Werner Herrmann, at (512) 475-8668. Additional information about the European Union can be found at http://www.eurunion.org
