Guest speech of the Ambassador of Spain to the OSCE; H.E. Mr. Carlos Sanchez de Boado

On the occasion of the rotating one-year CiO (OSCE Chairman-in-Office) 2007 Chairmanship of Spain, the IMC Export Department, under the auspices of the Chair for International, Legal and Global Political Studies, was inviting the Permanent Representative of Spain to the OSCE, H.E. Amb. Carlos Sanchez de BOADO y de la Valgoma for a visit and guest lecture on 26th February 2007. Bilingually addressing the audience in Spanish and in English, Excellency de Boado spoke on the topic “Priorities of the Spanish Chairmanship”. His remarks were followed by nearly two hours of discussions with students and professors, and by a cocktail reception.

Ambassador de Boado’s remarks offered the IMC Export Fellows a rare opportunity to gain insights into security, migration, environmental/sustainable development policies and activities of both Spain as well as the OSCE regional forum. Following his formal remarks the Ambassador provided thoughtful and inspiring responses to questions (equally asked in Spanish and in English) on the Climate Change, forthcoming Youth Forum, Terrorism, relations with Russia and countries of CIS and other topics.

An extraordinarily eloquent senior career diplomat, Ambassador de BOADO joined the Foreign Ministry some 30 years ago. His major diplomatic assignments (nearly on all continents) have included the Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Moscow, Prague, Namibia, the US and Uruguay. H.E. de Boado has also held other major diplomatic positions within the Ministry including Director for Inter-American Affairs, Security Affairs and Deputy Director for the Protection of Spanish citizens abroad. His first Ambassadorial post was in 1990 (Windhoek, Namibia), and since January 2004 Excellency de Boado serves in Vienna as the Permanent representative of Spain to the OSCE. H.E. holds the high degree in Legal Studies as well as in the post-graduate Diplomatic studies from the prestigious Madrid universities.

Summing up after this content-intensive and for the first-time biligually organized IMC EXPORT event with Mr. Ernst Fietz, the EXP Program Director, Ms. Susanne Pyka, the EXP Spanish language Professor and Mr. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, EXP Chair and principal host of the event, Ambassador de BOADO stated that he has been very impressed by our faculty’s continued interest in work of regional organizations. The Ambassador also complimented the commitment, knowledge and advanced comprehension of Spanish language of our students as demonstrated in the questions and discussion with him as well as with the overall achievements of our young institution. He promised to return to our university for the CiO debriefing by the end of this year.

After last year January visit of the Belgium ambassador H.E. Philippe A. Nieuwenhuys, this was a second event in the CiO/presidency series.

Text: Mr. Bajrektarevic