Ministry of Foreign Affairs

State Secretary Bába’s Remarks at the Opening of the Diplomatic Training Mission

February 19, 2013 2:05 PM

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, February 18, 2013

Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am honoured to welcome all of you, but especially our foreign guests:
•    Mr. Patrick Child, Managing Director of the European External Action Service;
•    Excellencies: Ambassador Bozin Nikolic, Director of the Diplomatic Academy of Serbia; Ambassador Hans Winkler, Director of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna;
•    Ambassador Georg Stillfried, Director of Human Resources Department of the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs of Austria;
•    and of course all of our colleagues from the Ministry

on the occasion of the opening ceremony of our new training centre, the so-called Mini-Embassy or Mini-Mission.

The real career of a young diplomat does not start within the walls of a foreign ministry but more on her or his first foreign posting at a mission abroad. Thus it is with utmost importance to obtain – apart from the theoretical knowledge – the practicalities of a foreign mission.

This was the very reason why on the initiation of the Human Resources Department and in cooperation with other departments of the Ministry responsible for the different trainings of our diplomats and other colleagues, we created the Mini-Embassy, our well-equipped and modern training centre.

This training centre will be able to serve many purposes simultaneously: form the base of education for young diplomats entering our service; prepare colleagues already in the MFA for foreign postings as well as other public servants from different ministries; and simulate real-life challenges for all the above mentioned.

Allow me to share some information on the training system for diplomats and other colleagues of the Ministry and the role of Mini-Embassy within this system.

The Mini-Mission consists of everything which can be found at any of our more than 100 missions around the world:

•    Visa section;
•    Secretariat;
•    Ambassador’s room,
•    high security area for the handling of classified information;
•    conference room.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We hope that in the future the Mini-Embassy will contribute to the training of Hungarian diplomats and might be a part of a closer cooperation with the education and training system of European External Action Service.

Let me hereby thank all the immense work of our colleagues, who took part in the creation of this wonderful facility, the Human Resources Department, Financial Department, Department of Facility Management, Department of Security and Information-Technology, Department of Consular Affairs and the Protocol Department.

Thank you for your kind attention!