Gunnar Myrdal Lecture
“The Future of European Cooperation – a view from Moscow”
by Sergey V. Lavrov, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister
Palais des Nations (Salle XIX), Geneva
Tuesday, 12 February 2008, 3 p.m.
Geneva, 5 February 2008 -- This year’s Gunnar Myrdal Lecture will be delivered by H.E. Mr. Sergey V. Lavrov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The topic will be “The Future of European Cooperation – a view from Moscow”. The lecture will take place on Tuesday, 12 February 2008 at the Palais des Nations (Salle XIX) at 3 p.m. (invitation).
Mr. Lavrov will speak on a wide range of topics concerned with Pan-European cooperation, including military and security issues, aspects related to socio-economic and human rights, Russian relations with European countries and institutions, as well as the role of the United Nations, its institutions and specialized agencies in fostering multilateral cooperation.
The audience will comprise heads and senior officials of the United Nations system and other international organizations, government officials, ambassadors, diplomats, as well as invited guests from academia and the private sector.
Mr. Lavrov graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1972 and began his diplomatic career at the USSR Embassy in Sri Lanka. In 1976 he returned to Moscow to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Between 1981 and 1988, Mr. Lavrov was a senior adviser at the Permanent Representation of the USSR to the United Nations in New York, a city to which he returned in 1994 – after an interim period at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – as Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation. While in the latter position, he served on a number of occasions as President of the United Nations Security Council.
In March 2004, Mr. Lavrov was appointed to the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Russian Federation.
About the UNECE Gunnar Mydral Lectures
The Lectures are named in honour of Gunnar Myrdal, the first Executive Secretary of the UNECE (1947-1957), who received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974. The lectures, which are devoted to a topical international issue, are delivered annually by prominent speakers from different walks of society.
The 2008 lecture to be delivered by Mr. Lavrov is the fifth in a new series devoted to major international economic problems. The UNECE 2003 Myrdal Lecture was given by Nobel prize winner Professor Douglass C. North, the 2004 Lecture by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, the 2005 Lecture by Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization and former Trade Commissioner of the European Commission, and the 2006 Lecture by Alberto Alesina, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University.
For further information please contact:
UNECE Information Service
Palais des Nations
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Phone: +41(0)22 917 44 44
Fax: +41(0)22 917 05 05
E-mail: [email protected]
Registration form: English - French
Ref: ECE/GEN/08/P01