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US–European Union Relations

www.coa.edu
www.coa.edu

Wednesday, August 8 at 2:00 pm

Speaking in Maine takes us next to the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor for a talk from the recent 2018 Champlain Institute: International Affairs. Today’s talk is a panel discussion on U.S.-European Union Relations.

Ambassadors Bill Eacho, C. Boyden Gray, and Jim Lowenstein will discuss the current state of US-European Union relations. Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is a founding partner of the D.C.-based law firm, Boyden Gray & Associates LLP. In the 1980s, he served as legal counsel for Vice President George Bush, and counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, chaired by Vice President Bush. Former US Ambassador to Austria, Bill Eacho became a Visiting Professor of the Practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University in 2014. Ambassador. Lowenstein is vice chairman and co-founder of the French-American Foundation in New York and Paris, the chairman of the Advisory Council of the American Library in Paris, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a French Legion of Honour Officer. Ambassador. Lowenstein is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and Ambassador to Luxembourg.

Panelist backgrounds:
Ambassador William Carlton Eacho III is the former United States Ambassador to Austria. Eacho was nominated by President Barack Obama in June 2009. He was confirmed by the US Senate and sworn in during August 2009. He succeeded David F. Girard-diCarlo as ambassador in 2009 and was succeeded by Alexa Wesner in September 2013. Eacho is co-founder of The Partnership For Responsible Growth, a bipartisan organization advocating for US legislation for revenue-neutral fees on carbon.

In 2013, Ambassador Eacho joined the Center for Transatlantic Relations as a Distinguished Fellow, and was Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, with an expertise in global energy, environment, and security issues. He formerly served on the Energy and Security Task Force of the International Peace Institute. In 2014, Eacho became a Visiting Professor of the Practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is an attorney in private practice, formerly with Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, then Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and now a founding partner of the D.C.-based law firm, Boyden Gray & Associates LLP. He is also a former American diplomat and public servant.

C. Boyden Gray attended St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1964. He also served as a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps Reserve from 1965–1970. Gray later received a JD degree from the University of North Carolina law school, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the UNC law review. He graduated in 1968. After graduation, Gray clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. In 1968, he joined the firm of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, and became a partner in 1976. Grey took a leave of absence from the firm in 1981 to serve as legal counsel for Vice President George Bush. He also served as Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, chaired by Vice President Bush. Gray later served as Director of the Office of Transition Counsel for the Bush transition team, and as Counsel to President Bush from 1989–1993. During this time, Gray became one of the main architects of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments that suggested market solutions for environmental problems.

Gray’s most recent government position was as Special Envoy for European Affairs and Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy at the Mission of the United States to the European Union, having been nominated by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on January 11, 2008. On March 31, the White House announced his appointment to the additional post of Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy. In 1993, President Bush awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal.

Ambassador James G. Lowenstein is vice chairman and co-founder of the French-American Foundation in New York and Paris, chairman of the Advisory Council of the American Library in Paris, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the French Institute of International Relations, and a Legion of Honour officer. Lowenstein is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and Ambassador to Luxembourg.

Lowenstein began public service at Marshall Plan European Headquarters in Paris 1950-51. He was detailed to the US Special Mission to Yugoslavia (resident in Sarajevo) and the Temporary Council Committee of NATO. He was a naval officer Sixth Fleet and Staff Naval War College 1952-55, was commissioned Foreign Service Officer in 1956 and served successively at the State Department’s Office of European Regional Affairs, the American Embassies in Colombo and Belgrade (under Ambassador George Kennan), the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (under Chairman Senator Fulbright), as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (under Secretary Kissinger) and as Ambassador to Luxembourg.

Since his retirement from public service in 1982, Lowenstein has worked as a consultant to Continental Grain and Marsh and McLennan, and served on the boards of various investment funds and organizations including Refugees International and the Madeira School of Advanced International Studies. He was also Senior Elections Adviser to Head of OSCE Mission to Bosnia Herzegovina, 1996-1997, and Chairman of the Ukraine Fund.

Source:  www.coa.edu

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