WASHINGTON, D.C., His Excellency Sidney Collie, Bahamas Ambassador to the United States and Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), paid a courtesy call on His Excellency Jean-Arthur Régibeau, the new Belgium Ambassador to the United States and non-resident Ambassador to The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, on Friday, February 26, 2021, at the Embassy of Belgium, 3330 Garfield Street, N.W. , Washington, D.C.
Matters of mutual interest to The Bahamas and The Kingdom of Belgium were discussed.
Ambassador Régibeau, who presented his credentials as Ambassador of the Kingdom of Belgium to the United States on September 17, 2020, joined the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1998. He was the diplomatic advisor to the Minister of Defense from 1999 to 2002 and he went on to be First Secretary at the Belgian Embassy in Berlin. From 2003-2007, Mr. Régibeau returned to Brussels as Head of the Private Office of the Minister of Defense.
In 2007, he was appointed Director general in charge of Multilateral Organizations at the Foreign Ministry. In this capacity, he managed some aspects of the Belgian presidency of the European Union in 2010. From 2012-2016, he also was Deputy Commissioner for the commemoration of World War I. In 2016, he took up his role as Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Armenia, Belarus & Uzbekistan.
Mr. Régibeau studied at the State University of Liège, where he obtained his Master’s degree in Law in 1984. From there, he went on to obtain a Certificate in International Law from the State University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1985. One year later, he joined the Johns Hopkins University SAIS program in Bologna, Italy, where he obtained a diploma in International Relations.
Ambassador Régibeau has been a guest professor on European institutions and Europe and Globalization at the University of Liège. He also gave lectures on Globalization and Security issues at the Defense Ministry in Brussels (2007-2015).
Born in 1962 in Liège, Mr. Régibeau is both a Belgian and Swiss citizen. In addition to some Italian and some Russian, he speaks fluent French, Dutch, English and German.
