[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 22, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 TRIBUTE TO DENMARK'S AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES, K. ERIK TYGESEN

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 22, 2000

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues to join me in bidding 
farewell to Ambassador K. Erik Tygesen, who has served as Denmark's 
extraordinary envoy to the United States for the past five years. 
Ambassador Tygesen's outstanding efforts to promote the diplomatic 
relations between the United States and Denmark are a reflection of his 
exemplary devotion to democratic ideals, and we are immensely grateful 
for his commitment and integrity. He will be missed here in Washington.
  In July 1997 President Clinton traveled to Denmark, the first-ever 
visit of a United States President in office. The trip was an 
overwhelming success, due in large part to the preparations and 
planning of Ambassador Tygesen. This visit further strengthened the 
long and strong lasting ties between our two countries. In his speech 
to Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark, President Clinton said, ``The 
United States has had relations with Denmark longer than with any other 
country, and our nations have never been closer than today. On almost 
every issue we stand together, and on some of the most important issues 
we stand together almost alone. But America always knows it is in the 
right if Denmark is by our side.''
  Ambassador Tygesen embodies these sentiments that President Clinton 
voiced. Consistent with a long Danish tradition of championing peace, 
Ambassador Tygesen was a platoon leader in the first United Nations 
peacekeeping force, UNEF, in Gaza from 1956 to 1957. He subsequently 
devoted his life to the diplomatic service. After holding numerous 
high-level positions in the Danish cabinet, Ambassador Tygesen was 
appointed Deputy Head of the Danish delegation to the United Nations' 
11th Special Assembly on Economic Affairs in 1980, where his 
performance was so commendable that he shortly thereafter was appointed 
Ambassador to Brazil and then to Germany. In 1995 he was made 
Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark to the United States of America.
  In this last post, Ambassador Tygesen encouraged Denmark to join the 
United States as an active part of the international effort to counter 
the destabilizing effects of President Milosevic's ethnic cleansing 
agenda in the former Yugoslavia. Consequently, Denmark was the one of 
the largest per capita contributors to peacekeeping missions in Kosova, 
participating in the air campaign and providing troops and police as 
well as humanitarian aid and reconstruction assistance.
  Ambassador Tygesen also promoted Danish support of NATO expansion. At 
the Washington Summit in April 1999, Denmark welcomed Poland, Hungary 
and the Czech Republic to NATO. This generosity of spirit and global 
awareness were also evident as Ambassador Tygesen sought, both in 
Washington and in Copenhagen, to support further liberalization of 
transatlantic trade in the interest of both our countries. His efforts 
to contain and eliminate trade frictions and to devise an early-warning 
system so that both sides of the Atlantic might avoid such trade 
disputes in the future have strengthened cooperation between the United 
States and the European Union.
  Last year the Ambassador also secured Danish funds which made it 
possible to sign an agreement between the Danish Ministry of Culture 
and the government of the United States Virgin Islands (the former 
Danish West Indies). Denmark shares a rich common heritage with these 
islands, and through this agreement will transfer original archival 
material on the history of the Danish West Indies from the Danish 
National Archives in Copenhagen to the Unites States Virgin Islands.
  Ambassador Tygesen has been integral to promoting the continued good 
relations between the United States of America and the Kingdom of 
Denmark. He displays all the noble qualities of compassion, 
reasonableness and foresight which characterize his countrymen, and we 
in Washington shall miss him greatly.

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