An Ambassador dreams of Brussels and an integrated Europe

Belgian Ambassador Johan Verbeke, a lifelong student of international affairs, is one of the most active members of our Diplomatic Advisory Council (DAC). The DAC consists of 40 key ambassadors who advise and participate in our programming and serve as a direct link to our partners in national capitals abroad. With a knowing smile and charming flair he brings decades of knowledge and experience in foreign affairs to our roundtable discussions. We recently sat down with Ambassador Verbeke to better understand his career and his opinions on foreign policy. Ambassador Verbeke has had postings across the world, from Beirut to Jordan, Burundi and Chile, through New York and London, and now finally Washington, DC.

Ambassador Verbeke first became fascinated with other countries as a child on a trip to Italy. At the time, Italy was a far-away place, which, traveling by car, took three days to reach. Unlike traveling in the EU today, such a journey at that time involved closed border crossings through foreign countries. The landscape, language, and culture — so different from what existed in Belgium — fascinated him and led him to want to know more about what was going on elsewhere in the world.

At Ghent University in Belgium, Ambassador Verbeke studied international and European law before winning a prestigious scholarship that allowed him to attend an American university for a year. He chose to study international law at Yale University where, as he puts it, “they don’t just study the law, but also the reasons behind why the law exists.” This policy-oriented approach didn’t exist at other schools. Learning to ask why something is there and delving into changing policy later influenced him when he chose his first posting as a member of the Belgian Foreign Service. He went to Beirut, Lebanon, because he wanted to “live in the Middle East in a very critical period.” He has since focused much of his career on countries that live through periods of transition, or, to put it bluntly, are in crisis.

Ambassador Verbeke has had a wide array of postings with the Belgian Foreign Service, including high-level positions in the European Union and Ambassador to the United Nations. Speaking about his experiences in these organizations he said, “They are indispensable, as far as norm-setting is concerned but they are less performant in crisis management. They can’t respond to crises in real time like a nation-state can.” However, the UN provides a unique forum. “The UN is the only organization where any country can speak with any other country on any subject they wish,” said Ambassador Verbeke. “It allows for a truly global conversation.”

Turning the conversation towards our DAC and the roundtables of The Congressional Study Groups, we asked him what attracts him to these programs. For the Ambassador, speaking to Members of Congress allows him to better understand local politics and the local effects of national and international policy decisions. He describes Members as speaking “from a different perspective, that of their electorate.” Indeed, Ambassador Verbeke loves to hear from people all across the country. He often speaks at college campuses, where he finds US students to be much more at ease asking questions and debating, compared to their European counterparts. “The American style of debating and negotiating is very open and transparent, to the point and straightforward,” said Ambassador Verbeke.

As the end of his decades-long career in the foreign service approaches, Ambassador Verbeke has had to start thinking about next steps. Though he grew up in Ghent, the Ambassador looks forward to settling in Brussels in a few years once he retires. With the NATO and EU headquarters located there, the city is a hotspot for the international community. “You can close your eyes while sitting on the metro and hear four or five different languages and when you open your eyes, you see people from twice as many nations clustered together,” said Ambassador Verbeke as he described the immersive environment. “There is a truly cosmopolitan mentality in Brussels that you cannot find in any other country.”