He became the BBC Balkans correspondent based in Belgrade in 2009, covering the former republics of Yugoslavia and Albania, during which time he reported on the first elections in Kosovo since independence, the trial of Radovan Karadžić, and the arrest of the former Commander-in-Chief of the Bosnian Serb Army, Ratko Mladić.

Lowen became BBC Athens correspondent in autumn 2011, replacing Malcolm Brabant, who had become seriously ill following a routine inoculation against yellow fever.

From there, he reported among other subjects on terror attacks, the attempted coup, the migrant crisis, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Syrian Civil War.

[5] Lowen's mother is the British actress Eve Karpf and his grandmother was Natalia Karp, née Weissman (1911-2007), a Jewish refugee from the Nazis and Holocaust survivor, whose story he told in a BBC broadcast and online report.

[6] Lowen is married to the Portuguese actor and director of the D. Maria II National Theatre Pedro Penim.