*  *  Introduction  Ambassador, Sir Nigel, Dr Fouquet, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the invitation and for the opportunity to speak here today. According to geological surveys, around 7,000 years ago, Europe looked quite different from what it looks today.
A single land mass, known as Doggerland, stretched from Britain’s east coast to the Netherlands and the western coasts of Germany and Denmark. Britain was not an island, but an integral part of continental Europe. The end of the Ice Age seems to have ushered in the end of Doggerland as well.