13th January 2017 London, UK
At this time of year I am reminded of Christmas 1989. Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed. The eyes of the world were on Romania. The media focused on the infamous children’s homes – all in utter disrepair, filled with neglected, wide-eyed children in their cots. This was the moment when […]
Read more on New Year’s Resolution – Giving up… time? | Reply
5th January 2017
January is a time for looking both back and forward, rather like the Roman God Janus. Here’s a personal selection of a dozen of the highlights of a busy and productive 2016 at the British Embassy Bucharest. In January I was in London for the DIT Civil Nuclear Showcase, talking to UK companies in the […]
Read more on 2016 at the British Embassy Bucharest | Reply (4)
7th June 2016
I attended a moving event on 31 May at the top of the hill in the eastern Carpathians named Pogany-Havas, the Pagan Snow Cap. Friends and villagers had walked up from the pass below to commemorate the life of British environmentalist Barbara Knowles, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Barbara was one of the […]
12th November 2015
We held a learning and development week at the British Embassy last month. Alongside training courses ranging from performance management to social media I decided to put together a slightly more light-hearted finale. We would attempt to identify the pieces of music which, in the view of Embassy staff, best represent Romania and Britain. I […]
11th June 2015
It was a summer day in August and I was having burgers and fries at the only McDonald’s in Berceni, a peripheral neighborhood in Bucharest. Misha, who was sipping out of a Coke plastic cup, was soon to be the first employee of my budding new venture that had no clients, no money and no […]
Read more on Romanian stories in Britain (IV) Emi Gal: ‘Never give up’ | Reply
23rd February 2015
20 February 2015 marks the 135th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Romania. There have been numerous friendships forged during this period. Britons closely involved in the politics of the emerging independent state of Romania in the nineteenth century included the remarkable Maria Rosetti, born Marie Grant, the wife […]
Read more on Britain and Romania: A partnership between friends | Reply (1)
15th January 2015
A visit by the Foreign Secretary is an important moment for any Ambassador or High Commissioner, providing opportunities for working with the host government at the most senior level, and a spur to host authorities to think about the bilateral relationship with the United Kingdom and how to develop it. And so I was delighted to welcome Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond […]
Read more on Visit by the Foreign Secretary to Romania | Reply
8th December 2014
‘Romania’s “televised revolution” was the most exciting event of 1989, that momentous year when country after country fell out of the crushing embrace of the Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin Wall provided the main drama of that year and the revolutions in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the other central European countries were smooth […]
Read more on Romanian Revolution through British Eyes/Rupert Wolfe Murray: ‘ROMANIA: Memories of a Revolution’ | Reply
8th November 2012 Dublin, Ireland
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 […]
6th July 2012
Many people have asked me for an opinion about the latest developments in Romania. Here’s a link to what I said yesterday in an interview for Ziarul Financiar.