«My son works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the Minister’s office!»
The "Part-Time Diplomat" follows the journey of a blogger from Fokionos Negri Street to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And from there, with a borrowed Canon camera around his neck, like a tourist on a safari, he boards government jets to Belgrade and Pristina and follows the Balkan path of "European and Euro-Atlantic integration".
He finds himself, almost by accident, at meetings with World Bank executives, among Foreign Ministers at the sidelines of summits, and crosses the famous "diplomacy corridor" in the UN supermarket.
Through lively episodes and with a humorous perspective, an unexpected "diplomat" compiles daily "International Press Reviews," sets up the Ministry’s first social networks, and learns all the acronyms, metonyms, and abbreviations — and, most importantly, when a word absolutely needs quotation marks.
Three Ministers, two governments, and trips to Vienna, Geneva, Moscow, New York, and Hong Kong. He enters the system as a "foreign body" and observes it with open eyes, trying to decode the "wooden language" of diplomacy: the naming issue with FYROM, the Cyprus problem, the Greek-Turkish relations.
A humorous narrative essay, a political chronicle without arrogance, shedding light from within on the years 2008-2011, a special period of contemporary history.
The author had the honor to converse with Ambassador Daniel Fried, former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs of the USA, during the writing of this book.
