{"id":435949,"date":"2025-09-19T11:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/435949\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:30:14","slug":"ex-brexit-negotiator-guy-verhofstadt-to-speak-at-pro-eu-dinner-in-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/435949\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt to speak at pro-EU dinner in Edinburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">GUY Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and EU political heavyweight, will speak at a pro-EU dinner in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/local-news\/edinburgh-news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Edinburgh;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Edinburgh<\/a>, it has been announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">One of the most influential European political leaders of recent decades, Verhofstadt will be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner of the European Movement in Scotland on November 1.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Remarking on his forthcoming visit, Guy Verhofstadt hailed \u201cinternationalist\u201d Scotland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cScotland is the most pro-EU part of the UK. Its people understand the value to its trade, security, education, sport and culture of being at the heart of European affairs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/news\/25479678.police-scotland-backs-ash-regans-bill-criminalise-buying-sex\/?ref=ed_recent\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Police Scotland backs Ash Regan&#039;s bill to criminalise buying sex;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><strong>Police Scotland backs Ash Regan&#8217;s bill to criminalise buying sex<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThey are not isolationists but internationalists. They are not fantasists, but realists. They are not afraid of deep democratic cooperation between states but see the clear <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/news\/25063718.dwp-news-interviews-updates\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:benefits;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">benefits<\/a> of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I look forward to being in Edinburgh, and I\u2019m delighted that the European Movement in Scotland has invited me to visit a truly great European capital city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Guy Verhofstadt was prime minister of Belgium between 1999 and 2008, then served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), retiring in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">His many senior roles at the European Parliament included being Brexit coordinator and, for four years, chair of the Brexit Steering Group following the UK\u2019s 2016 EU referendum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He is president of the European Movement International.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GUY Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and EU political heavyweight, will speak at a pro-EU dinner in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,1102,2000,299,5187,147880,1699,4884,68206,147881,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-435949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-movement","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-guy-verhofstadt","18":"tag-political-leaders","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115230739100712330","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}