Catherine Ashton

Labour politician and former minister Baroness Catherine Ashton talks about her spell as a European diplomat including encounters with Putin, Sarkozy, Cameron and Hillary Clinton and leading historic negotiations such as the Serbia-Kosovo Accord of 2013.

Ashton was the EU’s first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security between 2009 and 2014 where she was responsible for representing the views of the 28 members during a turbulent period of history. She led the EU’s response on issues such as the Russian invasion of Crimea and Iran’s nuclear programme and encountered dictators and war criminals. She explains what worked and what didn’t and what modern-day diplomacy looks like behind the closed doors of the diplomatic world.

Ashton is a life peer and former Leader of the House of Lords. She was a justice and education minister in the Labour government and is a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.

This event is part of the festival’s Voices of Europe programme.