Ambassador João Vale de Almeida, head of the European Union delegation to the United States, will visit Jackson Wednesday [Jan. 30] as a special guest of the Mississippi Development Authority, Mississippi State University and its Janos Radvanyi Chair in International Security Studies.
In addition to meeting with state leaders and others, he will speak at an invitation-only luncheon to begin at noon at the Fairview Inn. His remarks will cover the EU's economic relevance to Mississippi, in particular, and the United States, in general, as well as how the U.S. and the EU can work together to help solve many global problems.
The ambassador will be accompanied by his wife, Anna Jara de Carvalho, who is a senior official of the European Commission.
Though an invitation-only event, the luncheon program is open to all interested members of the news media.
Prior to his 2010 appointment to Washington, de Almeida was the EU's director general for external relations. A Lisbon, Portugal, native, he is a University of Lisbon history graduate who also studied journalism and management in the United States, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. He joined the European Commission delegation after working as a journalist for seven years.
For more biographical information, visit
www.eurunion.org/eu/Ambassadors-Corner/Ambassador-Joao-Vale-de-Almeida-B....
Media members planning to attend the luncheon are requested to contact Tan Tsai, in advance, at 662-325-4062 or tsai@research.msstate.edu.