Belgian ambassador will visit Quad Cities this week

Embassy and Consulates of Belgium in the United States

Dirk Wouters, Belgian Ambassador to the United States has plans to visit the Quad Cities Thursday afternoon until noon on Saturday.

Wouters will visit various businesses in the Quad Cities and Iowa City, as well as visit Renew Moline and the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch.

At 7 p.m. on Thursday, Wouters will speak at St. Ambrose University's Galvin Fine Arts Center, presenting "Transatlantic, EU-U.S. Relations Under the New U.S. Administration: Are We Really Going to Question This Historic Relationship?"

He will also present "Belgium As a Gateway to Europe: Transatlantic Relations in an Age of Doubt" to the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce on Friday morning.

Wouters' foreign affairs work dates back to 1980. According to his biography, "In 2009, Mr. Wouters was called to the office of Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as his diplomatic advisor and Sherpa. After that, as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dirk Wouters was one of the main architects of the successful Belgian EU-Presidency and key foreign policy decisions on Afghanistan and Libya. He was the Permanent Representative of Belgium to the European Union from 2011 to 2016."