Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Christopher Hill. I'm political

scientists. I'm in the wrong place. I've fallen among strangers. Now here, as everybody

knows, not only are we physically close to the Department of Politics and International Studies

to the law faculty, but we have lots of links,

personal and disciplinary, and particularly on matters European, there's a long tradition of collaboration.

And it's a great pleasure, therefore, and an honour for me to be asked to introduce our speaker and the lecture tonight.

This McKenzie Stewart lecture, which has been going on since 1998, in honor of Lord McKenzie

Stewart, as who most of you know, was the first British judge, the European Court of Justice

became its president, I had, was an alumnus of Sydney Sussex College, it happens to be my own college,

and indeed of the professor after and therefore it's been a major occasion for the law faculty

over these last couple of decades and the lecture is supported kindly by the law firm of Shearman and Sterling.

Of course, the Centre for European Legal Studies is the organizing framework, and we will hear

from our legal colleagues later about that. But it's my duty and pleasure to introduce our speaker

to you, the American ambassador to the European Union, Mr. Anthony Gardner. To say that he has a

distinguished record is really an understatement. I mean, he's got qualifications which would be perfectly normal in a member of this academic community here.

He has BA in government from Harvard and Enfield International Relations from Oxford,

a JD from Columbia Law School, the Masters

in Finance from London Business School. He was fluent in French, Italian, Spanish and speak

to German. His published books, but more for the purposes of tonight, he has an enormous

experience across the divide of private and public sectors as well as

across the scholarly practitioner divide and that's not so usual.

He has served in the Clinton administration as Director of European Affairs in the National

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