The practitioner lecture series is intended to give IBEI students an opportunity to engage with international professionals about their personal work experience, the organizations they represent, and to learn about possible career trajectories in international governmental and non-governmental organizations. Each lecture will allow ample room for questions and inputs from the audience. All IBEI students and staff are welcome.

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Laurence Argimon-Pistre, Former Ambassador of the European Union Delegation to the Holy See, the Order of Malta and the UN Organisations in Rome.

Ms. Argimon-Pistre has a degree in law from the University of Grenoble where she studied European and International Law from 1970 to 1975. After an internship in an office of international lawyers, Ms. Argimon-Pistre joined the European civil service at the Commission in 1978. She first held the position of legal adviser working on the finalization of the customs union before joining the multilateral trade talks’ team (GATT). In this capacity, she was involved in the preparation for and the conducting of the Uruguay Round (1984 to 1991), representing the European Union first in the Working Party on Codes, then in the one on services. From 1991 to 1995, Ms. Argimon-Pistre was a visiting professor to the Independent University of Barcelona in international trade policy. She also gave regular seminars on Europe at the Central University of Barcelona.

In 1995, she was posted to the Directorate-General for External Relations where she worked on the ASEAN and ASEM Desk where she supervised, for the Commission, the preparation of the first ASEM meeting in 1996. In 2000, she was appointed Head of the Indian, Nepal, and Bhutan Unit and worked on the launch of a strategic partnership between the European Union and India, signed in 2004. Ms. Argimon-Pistre was also Head of Unit for Mercosur and Chile. She was in particular responsible for negotiating an EU-Mercosur association agreement and the strategic partnership with Brazil. Before taking up her duties as Head of Delegation of the European Union to the Holy See, to the Order of Malta and to the UN Organisation in Rome in 2012, Ambassador Argimon-Pistre was Permanent Representative of the European Union to the OECD and the UNESCO in Paris from 2007 to 2011. She retired from the European Service in July 2016.

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