Luncheon with the Ambassador of the European Union Joao Vale de Almeida

The European Union's Ambassador to the United States, Joao Vale de Almeida, will address the Los Angeles World Affairs Council over a lunch on August 22nd. With many European nations facing recession, enormous levels of debt and sky-high unemployment - 26% in Spain - the European Union is confronting multiple challenges which have global repercussions - including here in the US. Every time there is a banking crisis or budget problem in Europe, the Dow Jones drops, as nervous investors wonder whether the weaker economies in Europe could endanger the world financial system.

Ambassador Vale de Almeida will talk about the current state of the Eurozone and the immediate economic future, as well as longer term plans to boost the economies of Europe by linking them to the US in a new free trade pact. The Obama administration and the EU have recently agreed to open negotiations on the "Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership" (TTIP) that - if successful - would be the biggest free trade agreement in the world, with the potential to increase trade between the US and Europe by some $180 billion a year, and create as many as 2 million new jobs.

Ambassador Vale de Almeida, from Portugal, has been working for the EU for three decades, and came to the US as EU Ambassador in August 2011. Europe is still the largest trading partner of the US, ahead of Asia, and Ambassador Vale de Almeida will provide an interesting perspective on the future of this important relationship.

To RSVP, please call (424) 258-6160 by Tuesday, August 20.