WorldBoston’s annual State of the State Department is a high-level speaking event, serving as an annual occasion to assess the strength of a critical instrument in the pursuit of U.S. national interest, within a policy context. In addition to critically evaluating the current state of the State Department, we will also look at U.S. diplomacy through the lens of the transatlantic relationship. Ambassador Nicholas Burns will be joined by E.U. Ambassador to the U.S. Stavros Lambrinidis for an exciting conversation about the dynamic between the State Department and transatlantic diplomacy.
Nicholas Burns will return to Harvard in spring 2025 as the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He will become Faculty Chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Faculty Member at Harvard’s Fairbank Center on China.
Stavros Lambrinidis is the Ambassador of the European Union to the United States, as of March 1, 2019. From 2012 to February 2019, he served as the European Union Special Representative for Human Rights. In 2011, he was Foreign Affairs Minister of Greece. Between 2004 and 2011, he was twice elected Member of the European Parliament (MEP) with the Greek Social Democratic Party (PASOK). He served as Vice-President of the European Parliament (2009-11), Vice-President of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (2004-09), and Head of the PASOK Delegation (2005-11).