SOCIETY 377

Holland and Austria –
Same but different
H.E. Albert Gierveld, Ambassador of the Netherlands,
spoke about climate change, the ties with Austria and the
challenges the Covid-19 virus is creating.
You are accredited here in Austria
since September 2019, not only on the
bilateral but also on the multilateral level.
What are the challenges of serving
in both positions?
After the Corona crisis hit, we had to
improvise a lot. We went to home office
mode and luckily, we had the infrastructure
in place to do so. As head of
mission, it was very important to me to
maintain good communication with my
staff. At the same time I had to inform
our capital about what was going on in
Austria. For Dutch citizens who were
still stuck in Austria, we had to increase
our consular work to help them leave
the country. We had several large
groups, sometimes more than 140 people,
who wanted to go back to the Netherlands.
On the multilateral front, it
was more difficult because the Vienna
International Centre was closed. But of
course, we stayed in touch with the UNorganizations
in Vienna. We wanted to
hear what they were doing in response
to Corona. The Netherlands positively
replied to the request of DG Rafael
Grossi of the IAEA and made additional
money available to order Corona test
kits for the member countries that
needed them. We are in touch with all
UN-organisations and we try to find out
how they are handling the situation.
As permanent mission it is difficult to
do our work, but for the IAEA it is even
more challenging to fulfill their tasks,
for example sending inspectors.
You have been Deputy Director Ge-
Foto: SOCIETY/Pobaschnig
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