Andrew Bache

Andrew Philip Foley Bache CMG (born December 29, 1939 ) is a former British diplomat who was ambassador to Romania between 1992 and 1996 and, most recently, ambassador to Denmark from 1996 to 1999 .

Life

Studies and beginning of the diplomatic career

Bache, whose father was the owner of the balance manufacturer George Salter & Co. in the Midlands , graduated from Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge after attending school . He then worked as an accountant for the accounting firm Cooper Brothers in Paris and then as a trainee lawyer for this company in London . In 1963 he joined the then Ministry for Commonwealth Relations Office ( CRO ) and initially worked as an economics officer at the High Commission in Malaysia , before he worked for a short time in the Ministry's Cyprus division in 1964 . He was then third secretary at the High Commission in Cyprus between 1964 and 1966, where he experienced the effects of the Cyprus conflict after the so-called “ bloody Christmas 1963 ”, a protracted civil war-like dispute between Greek and Turkish Cypriots from the end of 1963.

After his return to Great Britain in 1966 Bache was only second secretary in the Ministry of Commonwealth Relations and some time later during a secondment to the Treasury ( HM Treasury ) employee at its center for administrative studies. After that he was employed between 1966 and 1968 as second secretary as well as political and economic advisor at the embassy in the People's Republic of Bulgaria . On January 19, 1968 he was accepted as a civil servant in the diplomatic service (Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service) . After the Ministry for Commonwealth of Nations ( Foreign and Commonwealth Office ) was merged with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Office) in October 1968 to form what is now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Affairs of the Commonwealth of Nations ( Foreign and Commonwealth Office ) , he worked as a consultant for Romania and Bulgaria between 1968 and 1971 the then North Department of the Ministry. During this time he dealt with questions about the political situation and the different attitudes of both countries towards the Prague Spring . While Warsaw Pact troops , made up of soldiers from the Soviet Union , the People's Republic of Poland , the Hungarian People's Republic and the People's Republic of Bulgaria, marched into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic , the Socialist Republic of Romania refused to march. At the same time he was one of the organizers of a visit by Romanian Prime Minister Ion Gheorghe Maurer to the United Kingdom, the first visit by a Romanian Prime Minister to Great Britain after the Second World War .

Around a year after the end of the Biafra War , Bache became first secretary at the High Commission in Nigeria in 1971 , where he last worked until 1974 as head of the public relations department. He was a close associate of the then High Commissioner in Nigeria, Cyril Stanley Pickard . During this time, the British Foreign Minister Alec Douglas-Home paid a visit to Nigeria and the Nigerian President Yakubu Gowon paid a visit to Great Britain. There were numerous British companies in Nigeria with large investments, while Gowon's government increasingly called for greater control over these companies and banks. The 1972 Gowon ban on foreign majority holdings in many areas of the Nigerian economy was later to hurt the country very much, as it allowed a few Nigerians with good contacts to make large profits. In 1974 he returned to Great Britain and became first secretary in the personnel department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before he was first secretary and economic officer at the embassy in Austria between 1978 and 1981 .

Ambassador to Romania and Denmark

After his work in Austria, Bache became Counselor and Chancellor of the Embassy in Japan in 1981 and remained in this post until 1985. During this time, bilateral relations were expanded, especially on an economic basis, and in 1983 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited . In 1985 he moved to the embassy in Turkey as counselor and remained there until 1988 before he returned to Great Britain and was head of the personnel department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the rank of counselor until 1990. He was responsible for the then staffing budget of £ 190 million for salaries, grants, services, travel and early retirement arrangements for the diplomatic service. From 1990 to 1992, he was Chairman of the Foreign Service at the Civil Service Selection Board and was therefore responsible for recruiting for the diplomatic service. On January 1, 1992, he became Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG).

In 1992, Bache succeeded Michael Atkinson as ambassador to Romania. He held this post for four years until 1996 and was then replaced by Christopher Crabbie . Most recently he took over the post of Ambassador to Denmark from Hugh James Arbuthnott himself in 1996 and held this position until he retired in 1999. Philip Astley then became his successor .

Web links

• Short biography and interview of the British Diplomatic Oral History Program of Churchill College of the University of Cambridge

Individual evidence

1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 44540, HMSO, London, March 5, 1968, p. 2668 ( PDF , accessed June 14, 2016, English).
2. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 52767, HMSO, London, December 31, 1991, p. 4 ( PDF , accessed June 14, 2016, English).