Internship in Brussels – the English version

Hey guys! As you may or may not know, I’ve just started a one-year internship for the Permanent Danish Representation to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. That means that I’ve moved to Brussels and will be working here for two full semesters as part of my master’s degree in political science. The purpose of this blog is to keep people updated on my whereabouts in Brussels, and I figured it made sense to also do this in English for those of you less acquainted with the Danish language. I won’t promise you an exact translation of every post, but I will do my best to let you know what I’m up to. Always feel free to contact me through e-mail/Facebook for comments, questions or just to say hi!

So, as mentioned I’m going to work for the Permanent Danish Representation to the European Union, which is basically an embassy that promotes the interest of the Danish government in relation to the EU. An additional feature of my internship is that Denmark will be Chairman of the European Council (i.e. the rotating Presidency for the EU) in the first half of 2012. Essentially it means that we have to put aside the Danish interest since we will be chairing the meetings and try to make ends meet in a compromise. As you might have guessed, there is quite some work involved in this. Usually the Permanent Representation, or Perm Rep for short, is staffed by around 80 people sent out from the Danish ministries. Now we’ve been upsized to 150 people including 26 interns, because the Presidency requires a lot of extra work.

I myself will be working in the section for Economic and Business Affairs, which covers areas like the internal market, competitiveness, industry, consumers, patents, state aid, financial services, trade policy, maritime policy, etc. I’ll be working with the first six of those topics. We’re a team of eight academic staff (called attachés) and two interns, and so far everyone seems really nice and extremely competent.

My work will consist of assisting four of the attachés in their daily work, writing summaries from meetings, fact-finding, answering phones, etc. It will give me a unique opportunity to work hands-on with the EU and it will count towards my degree when I return to Denmark. So far I’ve been to a few working group meetings with delegations from each member state (of which there are 27), where matters such as loan guarantees and resource efficiency were negotiated. It’s been very interesting so far, and I’m slowly starting to get a hang of things.

I’m living in a rented apartment with two girls, Mette and Tone, who are also interns at the Perm Rep. It’s a great apartment – there are a few pictures in one of my other posts. We also try to go exploring in our scarce spare time. We’ve been on a few city walks in downtown Brussels, which is a beautiful old city. Take a look at the pictures below.

Belgium is a fascinating country in many respects. They hold a world record as the country that has gone the longest without an actual government, which is kind of ironic considering that they’re also the “capital of Europe” and home of the vast EU bureaucracy. The country is composed of the Flanders region in the north, where people speak Flemish (which is basically Dutch), and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. The Brussels metro area is in the northern region, but people mostly French. However, street signs, commercials and even movie subtitles are in both languages, which can be both amusing and confusing.

The working language at our Perm Rep is Danish, and in the EU it is generally English although French can be and is used interchangeably. There is often quite a substantial interpretation/translation regime for meetings and documents, and sometimes one is amazed that things can ever move forward in an organization with 23 official working languages, even leaving the multiple decision bodies and stakeholders aside!

Since so many foreigners live in Brussels, there is an array of opportunities to go out to bars, clubs, cafés and restaurants. Our preferred spot so far is Place du Luxembourg, which has plenty of bars that overflow with Eurocrats (= European Bureaucrats) every Thursday and Friday night. It is conveniently located between the Perm Rep and our apartment, right outside the European Parliament. Furthermore, Brussels is always full of exciting events: This Thursday, we have parliamentary elections in Denmark, so all of the Danish expats are invited to an election party in downtown Brussels. On Friday, we are planning to go to the site of the famous Waterloo battle of 1815 (where Napoleon was defeated). There they are putting on a production of Les Misérables, which is bound to be exhilarating!

I think that was it for now, but as I said, I will do my best to post updates in English as often as possible. And remember that if you happen to come by Brussels, you are most welcome to stay in our guest room. Talk to you later!