19 April marked the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This was an extraordinary demonstration of heroism by a small group of Jewish resistance fighters against overwhelming odds. For nearly a month, they held out against some 2000 German soldiers with heavy weapons. Remarkably, a small group of the resistance fighters survived.

The commemoration of this anniversary was truly moving. Together with the Head of the UK delegation, Don Foster, a Minister in the Department of Communities and Local Government , I participated in a series of events beginning with a concert at the Great Theatre by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. Fittingly the loudest applause was not for the superb performance but for Simha Rotem, one of the few remaining survivors of the Uprising.

Simha Rotem spoke at the commemoration ceremony itself along with President Komorowski and the Mayor of Warsaw. I was struck by his quote from the late Marek Edelman, deputy leader of the resistance, to the effect that while defeat was inevitable, simply accepting their fate was not an option. It is impossible for us to imagine the sacrifices of those who fought in the burning Ghetto but we owe it to them not only to honour their memory but also to teach future generations the terrible consequences of war and intolerance. Nor can we forget the shared suffering of all Poles during World War Two. Next year of course, we will be commemorating 70 years of the Warsaw Uprising.

The new Museum of Jewish History in Poland, which will open properly in 2014, will both serve as a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man and celebrate a thousand years of Jewish life in Poland. The Jewish community has contributed much to life here throughout that time, as was acknowledged during the ceremony. I look forward to visiting the Museum next year.

Ambassador Robin Barnett with Tomasz Miedziński, President of the Association of Jewish Veterans (photo by Andrzej Machnowski, Agencja ATM)

I also received a honorary medal on behalf of the UK at the Jewish Theatre recognising our contribution as part of the Wartime Coalition that defeated the Nazis. This was followed by a special production of the play “A Night of the Whole Life”, directed by Szymon Szurmiej, which truly brought home the dilemmas and challenges of occupation and the Holocaust, as well as the quiet courage of so many Jews and Poles, who fought tyranny together. A fitting end to an emotional couple of days.

It has been a busy time for both me and the wider Embassy team. A recent Tuesday found me trying not to confuse the financing of energy investment in Poland with a trilateral Afghan, Polish, British roundtable on progress and next steps in Afghanistan. Both are really important.

Poland and the UK both need to invest huge sums to upgrade our energy infrastructure to ensure energy security and meet our low carbon obligations. We both see civil nuclear and shale gas as part of our energy mix in future, although nuclear will be bigger for us and shale for Poland. Our nuclear expertise is second to none and independent since we do not sell reactors.

British-Polish-Afghan Forum

We are therefore working closely together. At the energy investment seminar in Warsaw, last week I highlighted our new financing mechanisms like contracts for difference to give investors the confidence to invest in the UK and our capacity market, which provides an insurance policy against blackouts by ensuring we have the capacity to meet demand.

The challenges ahead are huge. But so are the opportunities. Who would have predicted a decade ago that shale gas would reduce US gas prices so dramatically that the US is now considering the export of LNG from terminals designed as import hubs?

Ensuring a sustainable future for Afghanistan is equally important. Peace and stability in that historically troubled country and the wider region has a direct impact on British and Polish citizens in today’s increasingly globalised world – a reminder of the importance of international missions conducted by NATO in supporting our security.

We also talked about the reality that Afghanistan has come on a long way despite some of the headlines. Children, especially girls, enjoy better access to education. The majority of the population has better access to health care. Women play a greater role in politics and economic life.

The Afghan economy has improved too and has big reserves of natural resources. Two in three Afghans now own a mobile phone: some two or three. So the sacrifices of brave Polish and British soldiers have certainly not been in vain.

Happily I did not mix up the different events.

Have a very happy Easter.

I am delighted to introduce today’s guest blog by an old friend, Dorota Mitrus*, who made an important contribution to helping promote effective democratic participation in Poland post-1989 and is now engaged in promoting democracy and effective governance in many other countries. Her blog speaks for itself.

What I would like to stress is that while for some in Poland International Women’s Day is associated with the communist regime, the principles behind it remain incredibly important. In today’s competitive world, we need to make full use of the talents at our disposal irrespective of gender, disability or other issues.

In the UK, we have done a lot to ensure that the role of women in society, in business and in public life, whether in our own country or globally, is maximised. But we know there is a lot more work to do on this.

I am looking forward to having lunch today with a group of talented Polish women to discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Happy International Women’s Day!

This year’s International Women’s Day is exceptional for me.

Firstly, because I was invited by Ambassador Robin Barnett to become a guest on his blog. Secondly, because I will be in Azerbaijan on that day.

If not for the latter, I would have probably missed that day completely in the spate of everyday work. For me, 8 March has never been a feast when you pass on best wishes and drink coffees, but rather a day which is about something completely different.

Time has stopped in Azerbaijan – I feel as if I am back in the 1970s, witnessing the preparations to a great feast. For the last few days, the staff in the hotel where I have been facilitating training have only talked about a big event, dancing, performances and other attractions.

Receptionists keep gossiping about the dresses for that day, the master of ceremony walks around the restaurant, doing sound and equipment checks, shouting something incomprehensible through the loudspeakers. He told me this morning that he was pleased I was there, because this is the International Women’s Day after all, and I will probably be the only foreign guest.

My presence has made him speak in three languages to make his entertainment more international – he will shout in Azeri, English and Russian. He got a bit sad on learning I also speak Russian, but he has immediately decided he would speak in English especially for me, as it will be more ‘worldly’.

This day remains a very important event in the former Soviet Union countries, ‘uniting proletarian women of all countries’ to such extent that I had to change the plan of my training and finish earlier for the ladies to be able to adjourn to their rooms, change into their evening dresses, do the make-up and look great on “their day”. I did not take any dresses with me to Azerbaijan, let alone an evening one…

As a child I was always convinced that the Women’s Day was a day of absurd.

The custom ordered us to give flowers to female teachers, cooks, cleaning ladies, all the female staff at school. I could not understand why I had to give them flowers as I was a little woman myself.

Furthermore, women were treated terribly on an everyday basis, hence the frenzy of observances on that one day seemed to be a reconciliation en masse of all men for all the bad things done to women, and all those things erased themselves with a touch of the magic wand – a carnation flower each woman received.

I know many people from my generation who have a trauma about this particular flower because of the Women’s Day association with carnations and other compulsory observances from the period of Communism, when feasting was obligatory, as were expressions of general happiness and international brotherhood, despite spokes put into the wheels of the system by forces evil to it.

As a Soviet and Communist custom, the Women’s Day simply disappeared from my ‘to –do list’ at some point, along with the obligatory, forced marches on 1 May or the Victory Day observances on 9 May.

My further memories related to the International Women’s Day are of my parents talking in the kitchen – my room was adjacent to it, separated only by a thin, socrealistic wall.

I remember their discussions, deafened by the Free Europe Radio which was on all the time (drowned out as well, which created a peculiar cacophony of sounds), during which some snippets of moral dilemmas reached my room.

For example, they were about whether my mother should accept a Women’s Day gift from the headmistress of the school who on all other days tries to force mum to obey the system, or whether to refuse the gift deliberately and use this occasion to demonstrate one’s independence and lack of agreement to the absurdities of life during Communism.

After all, the gifts on those days were soap bars, tea packets or even coffee if the times were better, but also some old stockings assigned according to the “one size fits all” principle, which was not necessarily true.

As a result, Women’s Day commenced a great exchange of presents among colleagues and friends, who, depending on where they worked, would receive a different size of stockings, different kind of tea or even a chocolate-like product. This process could last a few days or even weeks.

My secondary school time fell during the Solidarity period and the Martial Law – a time when merely mentioning Women’s Day did not go down well. My parents were involved with the Teachers’ Solidarity in Lublin – in those circles, the Women’s Day was more of an occasion appeal for female teachers that were interned or for imprisoned women – Solidarity activists.

Thirty years have passed since then, of which I devoted the last 20 to working with the NGO sector, including by leading projects aimed at increasing women’s activities and participation in politics and social life in both Poland and the former Soviet republics. Much has changed, even though I would not like to put my signature under all the effects of those changes, but I do not want to talk about this today.

To me, Poland still remains a country that ‘undergoes transformation’ and it is a pity that there is still no balance between the radical, feminist circles that one can easily see and hear, and the environment of competent, wise women who I have met in my professional life in recent years and who still do not see a place for themselves in the present public life and in the style created for media and promotional needs.

A peaceful work, self-assurance, partner relations with both men and women, competences and qualifications are not media-friendly and do not sell too well. One can then have an impression that in Poland we have those women who are silent, suffer from domestic violence and are too frightened to change anything on the one hand, while on the other there are those brave feminist activists getting prepared to hold senior state positions, who organise shadow cabinets.

But there is a space in between – a space for the many shades of the activities of Polish women. I count on this space to develop better and better in the coming years, which is what I would like to particularly wish you, ladies and gentlemen, and myself on this day.

Finally, I would like to propose that this day become the International Day of Women’s Solidarity, which makes sense when we are able to offer support for those women who fight for democracy, freedom of expression and for all human rights (given a woman is a human being, too) in their respective countries.

When I write this, I see the faces of my colleagues from the World Movement for Democracy, with whom I talk a lot about what is important for them.

In Zimbabwe, they fight for the access to education for young girls, so that they can have a better future; in Egypt, after the beginning of pro-democratic changes subsequent to the revolution, there was somehow no space for women at the decision-making table at a time when the future was being planned, even though there had been so many women in the Tahrir Square; in India, they spoke up for security and respect following recent tragic murders, for which no one had been responsible in the past.

Now the Indian women have had enough and started to speak.

I will be thinking about them here in Azerbaijan, during the evening event in a post-Soviet style, sitting next to young activists from Azerbaijani political parties wearing evening dresses, listening to the master of ceremony shouting in three languages, and to the assurances that all women are beautiful and deserve to be loved.

• Follow @FCOHumanRights on Twitter #IWD #womensday
• Map showing UK government action to empower women across the globe.

*Dorota Mitrus co-founded the European Institute for Democracy and has served as its President since 1998. EID, under her leadership, has implemented several programs supporting democracy around the world, targeting former Soviet Union countries as well as others such as Iraq and Egypt in efforts to share the unique Polish experience of transformation from satellite Soviet country into a strong democracy with a free market economy and a member of both NATO and the EU.

Prior to her leadership of EID, Dorota Mitrus worked for NDI Poland (National Democratic Institute for Democracy) as Coordinator of the “Women in Politics” program and as a political party building trainer and coordinator. Earlier, she was active in Polish politics as a member of an anti-communist opposition party, responsible for foreign relations, political marketing and media relations.

Dorota is a member of Vital Voices and World Movement for Democracy networks. In her private life, she is a wife and mother of three daughters.

You will of course be aware that David Cameron, our Prime Minister, delivered a major speech on Europe in London on 23 January.  It has received a lot of coverage in the Polish media and Foreign Minister Sikorski commented on it on 24 January.

The speech is a very clear commitment to keeping the UK in the EU, at the heart of the Single Market, and to maintaining our influence by being at the forefront of EU action on energy, climate change, development, foreign policy and other global challenges.  It specifically rejects the notion that the UK would be better off with a relationship to the EU similar to that of Norway and Switzerland.  The Prime Minister agrees with our friends inside and outside the Union that the EU would be weaker without the UK and the speech signals his intention to take the argument for British membership of a reformed EU to the British people.

The speech is also an honest assessment of the challenges that all of us in Europe face, including here in Poland. Specifically, the challenges of the Eurozone crisis and the changes it is driving in Europe, competitiveness in the face of a transformed global economy, and the gap between Europe and its peoples.

David Cameron proposes five principles for reform to overcome these challenges:

• Competitiveness: a serious effort to deepen the Single Market, cut red tape, open up trade and reform the EU’s institutions;
• Flexibility:  embracing the EU’s diversity, rather than insisting on one size fits all.  He has offered some initial ideas on what that means. But we recognise that we are at the beginning of that debate, not the end;
• Power must be able to flow back to Member States, as promised at the European Council in Laeken as far back as 2001:  we should examine both what the EU should do and what it should stop doing;
• Democratic accountability: there has to be a bigger role for national parliaments;
• Fairness: the changes brought by the Eurozone crisis must not undermine the integrity of the Single Market.

These are far-reaching and complex issues for Britain and the EU. But this speech shows that we are engaging with our EU partners, including Poland. The Government is committed to help shape the future of an open, flexible and adaptable European Union, to achieve not just a better deal for Britain, but a better deal for Europe too.

The EU already has areas where some Member States take part and others do not, such as the Eurozone and Schengen. Of course, the Single Market needs a common set of rules and ways of enforcing them. But it makes no sense to insist that one size fits all across 27 Member States.

Here, we are already actively working together with Poland on a really ambitious agenda, which includes completing the Single Market and Digital Single Market, the EU growth agenda, deregulation, Common Foreign and Security Policy, Energy including shale gas and civil nuclear, EU enlargement and increasing bilateral trade and investment.

The Prime Minister has made it clear that, as leader of his Party, he will seek a mandate at the 2015 election to negotiate a new EU settlement, and then hold a referendum with an in/out choice between staying in the EU on the new terms, or exit.  He is confident that he will able to negotiate the right reforms and win such a referendum to stay in. As party leader, he argues that “refusing to contemplate consulting the British people, would… “make more likely our eventual exit.”

David Cameron has deliberately not spelt out in depth at this stage what reforms he would seek, but his assumption is that there will be a Treaty negotiation in the next few years and that the UK will bring these issues to the table. The ongoing Balance of Competences review in the UK will inform his approach.

We at the Embassy look forward to participating both in the debate on the future of Europe and to continuing to work together in fruitful partnerships with the Polish Government and civil society to achieve our common goals.

Na pewno są Państwo świadomi, że nasz premier David Cameron wygłosił 23 stycznia w Londynie ważne przemówienie na temat Europy. Polskie media poświęciły temu przemówieniu dużo uwagi, a 24 stycznia przemówienie skomentował minister spraw zagranicznych Radosław Sikorski.

Przemówienie to w bardzo jasny sposób mówi o przywiązaniu do koncepcji pozostania Wielkiej Brytanii w Unii Europejskiej, w sercu Jednolitego Rynku, lecz także do koncepcji utrzymania naszych wpływów poprzez bycie na czele działań UE w obszarze energii, zmian klimatycznych, rozwoju, polityki zagranicznej oraz innych wyzwań globalnych. W szczególności przemówienie to odrzuca twierdzenie, że Wielka Brytania miałaby się lepiej, gdyby jej relacje z UE były podobne do relacji, jakie mają Norwegia i Szwajcaria. Premier jest zgodny z opinią naszych przyjaciół w Unii i poza nią, że bez Wielkiej Brytanii Unia byłaby słabsza. W przemówieniu zasygnalizował zamiar przedstawienia Brytyjczykom argumentów za członkostwem Wielkiej Brytanii w zreformowanej Unii.

Przemówienie to stanowi również uczciwą ocenę wyzwań stojących przed nami wszystkim w Europie, także tutaj, w Polsce. Chodzi tu zwłaszcza o wyzwania związane z kryzysem w strefie euro i zmianami w Europie, jakie kryzys ten powoduje. Chodzi o konkurencyjność w obliczu transformacji w gospodarce globalnej oraz o rozdźwięk pomiędzy Europą i jej obywatelami.

Premier proponuje pięć zasad ukierunkowanych na reformy, dzięki którym można byłoby sprostać tym wyzwaniom:

Konkurencyjność: podjęcie poważnych działań na rzecz pogłębienia Jednolitego Rynku, ograniczenia biurokracji, otwarcia handlu i zreformowania unijnych instytucji;

Elastyczność: akceptacja dla różnorodności w UE zamiast twierdzenia, że jeden rozmiar pasuje na wszystkich. Premier pokrótce rozwinął ten temat, przedstawiając swoje wstępne koncepcje. Zdajemy sobie jednak sprawę z tego, że to dopiero początek, a nie koniec debaty w tej sprawie.

Możliwość powrotnego przepływu kompetencji do krajów członkowskich, zgodnie z obietnicą z posiedzenia Rady Europejskiej w Laeken: powinniśmy przeanalizować, jakie działania UE może podejmować, a jakich powinna zaprzestać;

Odpowiedzialność demokratyczna: parlamenty narodowe muszą odgrywać większą rolę;

Uczciwość: zmiany spowodowane kryzysem w strefie euro nie mogą zagrażać integralności Jednolitego Rynku.

Są to dla Wielkiej Brytanii i Unii Europejskiej sprawy dalekosiężne i złożone. Przemówienie to ukazuje jednak, że angażujemy się w relacje z naszymi partnerami w UE, w tym w relacje z Polską. Nasz rząd pragnie przyczyniać się do kształtowania przyszłości Unii otwartej, elastycznej i zdolnej do adaptacji, mając na myśli nie tylko uzyskanie lepszych warunków dla Wielkiej Brytanii, lecz także lepszych warunków dla Europy.

W Unii Europejskiej istnieją już obszary, w których niektóre państwa członkowskie biorą udział, zaś inne nie, jak choćby strefa euro czy też Schengen. Jest oczywiste, że Jednolity Rynek potrzebuje wspólnych zasad i sposobów ich egzekwowania. Jednakże obstawanie przy tym, że wszystkim 27 państwom członkowskim UE powinno odpowiadać to samo wydaje się być pozbawione sensu.

Wielka Brytania aktywnie współpracuje z Polską w ramach naprawdę ambitnej agendy, w której skład wchodzą między innymi: dokończenie projektu Jednolitego Rynku oraz Jednolitego Rynku Cyfrowego, unijna agenda wzrostu, deregulacja, Wspólna Polityka Bezpieczeństwa i Obrony, energetyka (w tym gaz łupkowy oraz energetyka nuklearna dla celów cywilnych), rozszerzenie UE, a także zwiększenie dwustronnego handlu i inwestycji.

Premier Cameron stwierdził też wyraźnie, że jako przywódca swojej partii będzie podczas wyborów w 2015 ubiegać się o mandat do negocjowania nowych ustaleń z UE, a następnie przeprowadzenia referendum z opcją “zostać-wyjść”, które zadecyduje, czy należy pozostać w UE na nowych warunkach, czy z niej wystąpić. Jest przekonany, że będzie w stanie wynegocjować odpowiednie reformy i wygrać referendum, w którym obywatele powiedzą: “zostać”. Jako przywódca partii twierdzi, że “w przypadku braku zgody na rozważenie konsultacji z Brytyjczykami (…) nasze ostateczne wyjście stałoby się bardziej prawdopodobne”.

Na tym etapie premier celowo nie rozwijał głębiej tematu reform, które chciałby zaproponować. Zakłada on jednak, że w ciągu najbliższych kilku lat dojdzie do negocjacji na temat Traktatu i że Wielka Brytania położy te tematy na stole negocjacyjnym. Jego podejście znajdzie odzwierciedlenie w przeglądzie bilansu kompetencji pomiędzy Wielką Brytanią i Unią Europejską.

Ambasada Brytyjska z przyjemnością weźmie udział zarówno w debacie o przyszłości UE, jak również będzie kontynuować owocną współpracę z polskim rządem i społeczeństwem obywatelskim w celu osiągnięcia naszych wspólnych celów.

Ambassador Robin Barnett at the annual gala of the Integracja Foundation (photo by Marta Kuśmierz)

December has certainly not been a quiet month for the Warsaw Embassy team. Just a few examples.

We were extremely proud to be awarded the Medal of the Friends of Integration by the prestigious Integracja Foundation at their annual Gala last week. This reflects our work over several years to support the Polish government, Parliament and NGOs in their efforts to improve the situation of the disabled. Our engagement has included study visits to the UK to see how UK disability legislation and policies work, seminars on topics including access to work and collaboration with the magnificent Polish paralympians. But there is lots more to do in 2013!

We have been actively engaging with Polish nuclear energy stakeholders to understand how the British regulatory process and over 60 years of unrivalled experience of the whole civil nuclear cycle can help Poland’s nuclear energy ambitions. This included active participation in the International Nuclear Forum chaired by Lady Barbara Judge.

And we celebrated our wider engagement with Polish Ministries, the law enforcement community and British and Polish Business with a traditional British and Polish carol concert supported by Szymanowski Big Band and the Choir of the Educational Centre for Blind Children in Laski near Warsaw. What better way to celebrate a GREAT and very busy year of Anglo-Polish co-operation.

May I wish you a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2013.

The following is a guest post by Stana Buchowska PhD on the serious issues of human trafficking and violence against women.

It is an admirable analysis of a complex problem. Let me add a word on our Foreign Minister’s initiative on preventing sexual violence in armed conflict. When we think of armed conflict, we think first of soldiers and tanks. But war is also about civilians, all too often women and children, who end up caught up in warfare.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence have been used against women in conflicts across the world, including here in Europe in places like Bosnia and Kosovo. Yet only some 30 people have been convicted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite an estimated 50,000 rapes during the war there.

The Foreign Secretary wants to end the culture of relative impunity around those who use sexual violence against men, women and children. We want to see far more successful prosecutions against those who commit such dreadful crimes. So we have set up a new UK team of experts, including police, lawyers and forensic scientists who can be deployed at short notice to help gather evidence to support investigations and prosecutions.

It will support UN and other international missions and help provide mentoring and training.

We want to raise awareness globally so we will use Britain’s Presidency of the G8 starting on 1 January 2013 to run a year-long diplomatic campaign on preventing sexual violence in armed conflict. We will be engaging with Polish authorities and NGOs as part of this.

Stana Buchowska PhD, co-founder of the La Strada Foundation, which has worked against human trafficking and slavery in Poland since 1995.

Stana Buchowska

Her main areas of work and expertise include co-ordination of major projects implemented by La Strada, networking on the national and international level, development and implementation of training programs especially for law enforcement representatives, social service providers and NGOs. Stana Buchowska currently works for ECPAT UK as Co-ordinator of the ‘Parliamentarians Against Human Trafficking’ project.

Reading my newspaper in the tube daily, I cannot actually recall a day without the headline news referring to a case of violence against women.  Stories of violence are about rich and poor, well established, local women and migrants, well educated and poorly educated, all different races, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

It is interesting to observe, however, that in cases when violence is perpetrated against  rich and famous women, the media become more responsive and the public opinion  - which is created  and strongly influenced by the media -  seems to be more moved or shocked and more willing to see the problem when it affects the crème de la crème.  But if we’re talking about violence against women coming from marginalized groups – migrants, ethnic minorities, unemployed or homeless – the public often seems to be less interested.

Dealing with the issue of human trafficking, it often comes to my mind how deeply human trafficking is interwoven with violence against women. This is, in most cases, a cause and a consequence of trafficking. Before women and children become victims of trafficking, they are often victims of domestic violence.

Being trafficked they are suffering all forms of violence, physical, psychological, sexual. Violence against women is one of the factors conducive to trafficking. Women and children who are suffering violence from their families and relatives are more likely to became victims of trafficking, because they are lacking  safety in their homes and families, and therefore  are looking for possibilities to leave the abusive and violent environment.

After suffering from violence, every offer, every false promise from the recruiters and traffickers seems to be a good chance and opportunity to leave and to escape from the oppressive situation. Victims of violence are more prone to trafficking.  Being responsive to the promises of a better life, they do not realise that they will end up in a similar if not worse situation.

The vicious circle comes full circle. We need to understand and address violence against women in the context of human trafficking and, vice versa, human trafficking in the context of domestic violence. Having the full picture of this will help us to break the vicious cycle and get to its roots.

After a week talking to businesses and enablers in London, Preston and Glasgow, I am convinced that we are seeing an upsurge of interest in the opportunities on offer in Poland and the rest of Emerging Europe. But we are also seeing British success today.

The big story of the week was the delivery of Boeing’s first Dreamliner to LOT – another sign of the Polish economic progress. This is a new generation plane. However, a key element in its success are the Rolls Royce engines that make it both use far less fuel and much quieter. An example of GREAT British technology.

I keep hearing that the UK is against Poland getting the Structural and Cohesion Funds necessary to help maintain economic growth and successes like the first Dreamliner in Europe. This is simply not true.

At a time when national governments across the EU are having to make major budgetary cuts, it simply makes sense to freeze the EU Budget in real terms. It amounts to the same protection we are giving our Health Service in the UK; the EU Budget amounts to €7 billion a year.

But we are also clear that the poorer Member States including Poland should be the principle beneficiaries of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds, even though that will mean less money for the UK. So suggestions that we are somehow anti-growth are wrong.

On the contrary, we are actually working with Poland to promote the EU growth agenda and increased competitiveness – for example, through joint initiatives on the digital single market; and on reducing regulation for business. The way to restore growth in Europe is not just through the EU Budget, but by making the single market work better.

Friday was the International Day of Tolerance. To mark this occasion, we held a party in the Embassy, which also served as the launch event for a fabulous photo exhibition recalling the superb British and Polish performance at the London Paralympics. I underlined how important a role tolerance plays in any civilised society and how crucial a part it can play in preventing conflicts around the world.

Ambassador Robin Barnett with Marta Makowska (bronze medallist in fencing, London 2012 Paralympic Games)

I also shared a personal example from the serious cold snap that hit London in late 2010. I was stuck at a station waiting with thousands of others for long-delayed trains. A train going in my direction was announced. A huge crowd, including me, headed for the right platform. I was clearly going too slowly for somebody behind me, who shouted ‘Get out of the way, you damn cripple’ and pushed me over.

That had the same deep effect on me that intolerance of religious belief, sexual orientation or learning difficulties like dyslexia has on others. Poland fought the intolerance of Communism and won. The global fight against intolerance has a long way to go.

Two things struck me during the evening. First, a priest who works with Polish Tatars said to me that tolerance was insufficient. Everyone is entitled to respect.

Secondly, how much the guests at the party, ranging from Paralympic Gold medal winners like Marta Makowska and Dariusz Pender to people working with amazing NGOs like Integracja and La Strada are contributing to the campaign for tolerance and respect.

We were delighted but humbled to host such dedicated people. It’s a great team, strong because it is diverse, and I am confident that working together we make respect the norm and not the exception.

I am off to London to participate in a week of events selling the opportunity for British business that Emerging Europe represents. Let me begin by defining Emerging Europe. At its core are nine markets, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, which together make up the Foreign Office’s Central European Network. However, in a globalised world business does not function within tight boundaries. Neither do we and I am delighted that representatives from Macedonia and Serbia will also be participating in the London events.

Why Emerging Europe? It is an exciting region which brings together over 100 million people, large sums in EU structural and cohesion funds, and a group of countries that experience higher growth rates by EU standards and which are seeking to modernise and develop rapidly. They are also members of the Single Market and on our doorstep. There are more flights to Poland every day from the UK as there are within Poland. British brands, expertise and quality are valued across the region. And the language of business is increasingly easy for Brits since, increasingly, it’s English!

I have lived and breathed the region since 1982. In those days, the number of British exhibitors at the biggest international fair in Poznań would fit into a very small room. Anything east of the Iron Curtain was distant and unimaginable for most companies. Post 1989, there was an upsurge in interest from British companies in the opportunities right across the region. Some stayed and prospered and are now household names. Others came and went for a variety of reasons. These included difficulties in market entry, excessive bureaucracy, corruption and issues with public procurement.

Since then, the world has moved on. No market is perfect. The scores in terms of the World Bank ease of doing business report vary significantly. But the reality is that even in the newest EU markets, Bulgaria and Romania, there are already a wide range of UK companies making money and doing well. There is room for a lot more. For such a high-potential region, UK market penetration is very low. For new to export and innovative SMEs, the region offers an excellent introduction to selling into emerging markets too. Cultural, linguistic and business barriers are low, especially by emerging market standards.

Our challenge now is to ensure that our Embassies across the region, spearheaded by our UK Trade and Investment teams, help more and more GREAT British companies to export to or invest in our region. So I will be visiting the North West of England and Scotland, as well as London, to help get our message across.