Publications | Reflections | 23 March 2017

Ambassador Hugo Paemen: Uncertain Times Call for Cool Heads

We live in changing times. In 2016, both the election of President Donald Trump and the Brexit vote caught many off guard.

Already there’s nothing concrete about 2017 and looking even further ahead is fraught with difficulty. Nonetheless, it’s now down to policy-makers and business leaders to chart a course through unpredictable waters.

But, for Ambassador Hugo Paemen, a senior advisor in the Brussels office of Hogan Lovells, that’s nothing out of the ordinary. As an EU trade relations pioneer of over four decades’ standing, he knows all about the sharp end.

Joining the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs after graduating from Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Hugo’s first embassy posting came to Paris in 1965. He followed that with time in Geneva and a stint as the Ministry’s Chief Spokesman before arriving in Washington, D.C. in 1974 with an economics brief.

To read the full interview with Ambassador Paemen, download a PDF copy of "Uncertain times call for cool heads." This article was first published in the March 2017 Hogan Lovells alumni magazine Reflections.

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