Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Belfast when he laid a laurel wreath at the Cenotaph at Belfast City Hall to honour those who had died in the First and Second World Wars. He attended the ceremony again the following year. In September 2013, he was seen to have broken "new political ground" when in a speech to the British Irish Association in Cambridge, "he went out of his way to address a unionist perception of a failure by a number of Irish governments to properly combat the IRA". In the same speech, he also said he hoped that the Government of Ireland could "host representatives of the royal family and the British government, along with the leaders of unionism, in Dublin in three years' time in remembering the Easter Rising". He was part of the process which aimed at resolving issues relating to parading, flags and emblems, and the past that was chaired by US diplomat Richard Haass from September to December 2013, and he maintained contact with the parties involved until he was replaced as foreign affairs minister in a cabinet reshuffle the following year. OSCE chair On 1 January 2012, Ireland assumed the 2012 chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE) for the first time. In his role as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Gilmore served as the Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE. EU Presidency and budget negotiations As Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Gilmore led Ireland's seventh Presidency of the Council of the European Union during the first half of 2013. He chaired the General Affairs Council of the European Union (EU) and acted as lead negotiator for the Council in talks with the European Parliament on a €960 billion, seven-year budget deal – also known as a Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) – for the EU for the period 2014–2020. Ireland's diplomatic network In November 2011, Gilmore announced the closure of Ireland's embassies in Iran and the Vatican, and a representative office in East-Timor, on economic grounds. Ireland was to retain an ambassador to the Holy See who would reside in Ireland rather than Rome. In January 2014, he announced that eight new diplomatic missions would be opened around the world, focusing mainly on trade and investment. Undocumented Irish citizens in the US As Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Gilmore lobbied for comprehensive legislation overhauling US immigration laws to help an estimated