March: Belgium, Paris, Copenhagen

March was yet another busy month. I had many tasks at work and we made good progress with the two most important files that I’ve been working on: the IMI system and standardisation. We also had the first initial contact with the European Parliament (EP for short), which is a crucial part of finalizing negotiations in the EU’s ordinary legislative procedure. Speaking of the EP, I also had the opportunity to attend a plenary session in Brussels, which is where the Parliament’s final decisions are being taken.

A major event this month was arranging an attaché trip to Copenhagen for representatives from all of the member states in our working group for industry and internal market issues. I followed my two attachés Signe and Katie to Copenhagen and kept track of the programme, transportation, etc. We visited a power plant, an electronics store and the ministry and I believe it was a great success. It was also a fun way to present my city and get to know people in a more informal setting. On top of that, it gave me a weekend back home to catch up with friends and family.

 In the middle of March, I took a little trip to Paris to visit my good friend from university Malene. She was for a semester at the ”Sciences Po” programme, and it was great to see her, meet some of her international friends and see Paris from her point of view.

I also took a few trips inside Belgium. Along with some of the other stagiaires I went to the Hergé museum in Louvain-la-Neuve, which is dedicated to the cartoon Tintin. Very cool! On the last day of March, Charlotte and I went to the city of Leuven (incidentally the Flemish version of Louvain), which is a charming old city with a beautiful neighborhood, begijnhoff, which used to be a place of refuge within the city. Other than that, and in between a busy schedule at work, there was also time for dinners, trips to the cinema and our hosting a great party for the Danish stagiaires in Brussels.

February: Ghent, Council meeting and much more

February was quite a busy month at work. In particular, the first meeting in the Competitiveness Council (of which there are two under each Presidency) was on February 20th, so a lot of time went into preparing that – both substantially and practically. One of my attachés and I were in charge of planning the meeting; both the preparations in Brussels and coordinating the visit of the Minister and his delegation coming down from Copenhagen. The meeting went very well and as before, it was really nice to see everything working out in practice after many hours of planning. And I even made it into one of the press photos (if you look closely). Also, the first Council meeting marks an important milestone in the Danish Presidency, which has already lasted for two months. Our next and last Council meeting is on May 30th, and most of our work from now until then is in some sense linked to that meeting. It’s going to be interesting and, undoubtedly, busy!

On the working group level, I have especially worked on the standardisation and IMI files (explained in the January post). I’ve also been given new responsibilities for a sub-group of the Trade Policy Committee, which deals with the EU’s external trade negotiations. The group I’m following is on trade with services: It is quite technical but very interesting in terms of process.

Lately, I have attended about two working groups per week in combination with meetings in the European Parliament and a number of other events. Soon, some of the files that I’m working on will be on the agenda for COREPER, and before long there will also be negotiations with the Parliament, so-called trialogues. For any EU-nerd, it’s extremely interesting to see the policy process of the European Union roll out in reality! Last but not least, I went to a conference where the President of the European Commission, José Barroso, was keynote speaker.

In the beginning of the month, I was clumsy enough to sprain my ankle. Yikes! It meant a whole weekend of being incapacitated, but as it turned out, catching up on sleep was much needed! My foot is much better now and should soon be back to normal. On a more positive note, I finally got a new iPhone in replacement of the one that was stolen in Amsterdam. Yay!

This month I had my good friend Marie Louise visit from Denmark. She was actually here for work, but she stayed with me from Wednesday to Sunday. She works at the Ministry for Climate and Energy in Copenhagen and was in Brussels to see “how things work” here. Coincidentally, she was to follow my dear fellow intern Charlotte around. I think that two days of work here was really interesting and rewarding for her, and it worked out great that she was able to then stay for the weekend and hang out with me! On Friday, we had lunch at the European Parliament and afterwards we headed to the city centre for sightseeing, i.e. Grand Place and Manneken Pis. 

We walked around for a few hours and then decided to head back to my neighbourhood and stay local for the night. We had dinner at the restaurant l’Ultime Atome on Place Boniface, which is quite a nice place. Later, we went to a couple of the local bars and sampled a few of the many beers that Belgium has to offer.

Saturday, we went to another big Brussels attraction, the Atomium. I’ve been there a few times now, but it’s still a pretty cool sight. Afterwards, we headed to the Parc Cinquantenaire in the EU Quarter. It was created in 1880 to mark the 50th anniversary of Belgium’s independence and features an impressive Arch of Triumph, which was finished in 1905. We went to the art museum there, which is rather mediocre. On our way back (through bitterly cold Brussels, by the way), we stopped at Place Jourdan to indulge in two of my favourite foods here; Maison Antoine, which is renowned for its pommes frites (that even earned them a Michelin star!) and Mamma Roma, which serves amazing pizza! Awesome! 

Saturday evening we had a dinner for some of the Danish interns and later we went to a party at one of the “Danish houses”. It was a really fun night, and we ended up going to the city centre in order to give Marie Louise a full taste of Brussels. Needless to say, we weren’t up for much the next day, which was all about relaxation until Marie Louise had to catch her plane home. It was great to have her visit, and what a fun weekend!

On another night we had invited some of the interns over for an ”African dinner”, inspired by our wonderfully exotic neighbourhood of Matongé (also known as little Africa, where many of the Belgian Congolese live). I had been to one of the local African grocery shops for some authentic ingredients and with a little inspiration from different recipes online, I put together a somewhat Euro-African meal consisting of the following: Peanut-tomato chicken (groundnut stew), spicy chicken with vegetables, mashed yams with plantain (plantain is a starchy green banana), mashed cassava (a strange-looking root similar to a potato), deep-fried plantain and (of course) rice. Check out the pictures. It was yummy!

Since neither of us had any big plans for Valentine’s Day, I made dinner for Charlotte and I, and we went to the cinema later. Speaking of which, I managed to go the cinema three times this month. I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Iron Lady and War Horse. I really liked all of them and would recommend them!

Last but not least, I went on a day trip to Ghent with Charlotte. It is 40 minutes by train north-west of Brussels in the Flemish region. We were supposed to meet with a friend of Charlotte’s who lives there, but unfortunately that didn’t work out.

Ghent is a very charming city located by the rivers Scheldt and Lys. In the Middle Ages it was actually one of the largest cities in Northern Europe. The city centre is very picturesque with the old port Graslei that features numerous historical buildings. From here, we went on a little boat ride, which was lovely but incredibly slow – as in walking-would-have-been-faster-slow! :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the centre, which has many pretty squares, churches and other buildings. At the central square Korenmarkt, we had lunch at Pizza Hut and took a coffee break at Starbucks. In case you were wondering, yes, Belgium is also somewhat Americanised! Later, we explored a few places mentioned in my Lonely Planet guidebook. Specifically, we went to the ”famous” bar Pink Flamingo’s, which features interesting decor but was otherwise a snooze. 

After a nice mojito at some cosy café, it had started raining heavily, but we ventured on in search for a place to have dinner. We finally found a cool Italian restaurant and both had a great pasta dish. The restaurant was literally next door to another well-reputed bar with the darling name Hotsy Totsy. It’s known for people playing board games over beers, so we opted for a quick round of Stratego before we had to leave to go catch the last train back to Brussels. All in all, a great day and a highly recommendable city to visit!

Upon our return, we went to a party called Holger at a club in the Marolles neighbourhood of southern Brussels. Nice venue, good music, loads of people – it was cool!

Okay, I guess that was all for now! Stay tuned J

January 2012

The beginning of 2012 has been incredibly busy. The Danish Presidency of the EU Council finally began and there’s been a lot going on since New Year’s. Here goes a brief summary of my month of January. For the sake of ease, I expect to do my blog entirely in English from now on.

The year began in Copenhagen, where I spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve. There’s a short post on that below. January 1st was a busy day, because I had to empty my apartment since I’m subletting it until I return from Brussels. On January 2nd, I flew “home” to Brussels and pretty much went straight to work.

The first week was not too busy workwise. Much of the EU system was still on holiday, but we did have our first working group meeting. The essence of the Presidency is that for the next six months, Denmark is chairman of the Council of the European Union, which together with the European Parliament constitutes the legislative branch of the EU. The Council covers ten sectorial formations, which are again split up into a multitude of working parties, where most of the negotiations between member states take place on a technical level. The attachés from the Danish Representation chair these working parties, and I assist my attachés in this task.

The first meeting was in my main working party on Competitiveness and Growth, COMPCRO for short, where the Presidency along with the Commission presented the priorities and plans for the coming six months. It went very well. After the meetings, one of my tasks is usually to write a brief version of the minutes (called a ”flash”) from the meeting, and send it to the relevant people in Brussels and Copenhagen.

As I said, the first week wasn’t too heavy with work, so I did manage to get out a couple of nights. There was a reception at the Confederation of Danish Industry on Thursday, and on Saturday I went to a pretty nice bar/club called Potemkine.

In the second week of January, the pace definitely picked up. I had three working group meetings and a lot of other stuff to attend to. Very briefly, the meetings concerned the following EU legislative files: (you may skip it, if it’s too dry)

   IMI: The Internal Market Information System is a electronic tool through which national authorities can communicate and exchange information with each other across borders. The system is already functioning, but it is now provided with a formal legal basis.

   Standardisation: An important aspect of the internal market is standardisation, because using the same standards for products (say electrical outlets) across Europe makes it easier and more efficient to produce and trade goods. The reform of the standardisation system is intended to make things run more smoothly and increase participation of relevant stakeholders.

   COSME: The Commission’s programme for Competitiveness and SMEs is going to offer different support measures for small and medium-sized enterprises in light of the economic crisis, notably through access to finance. It is a continuation of a current programme, which has been relatively successful.

All of the meetings went very well and good progress was made already on the first meetings during the Danish Presidency. The COSME meeting on Friday was interrupted by a bomb scare at the Council building, but luckily there was never any danger!

That week, my roommates and I went for dinner at one of the ”Danish houses” where five of the other Danish interns live. We had a really nice meal inspired by the Arabic infuences in their neighbourhood and we are planning to return the favour with an African dinner inspired by our neighbourhood of Ixelles/Matongé.

On the weekend, I got a little extra EU input when I went to the visitor centre of the European Parliament called Parlamentarium. It has a really cool and thorough exhibition of the story of the EU and the Parliament. Later, we went to a local sports bar to watch Denmark’s first match at the Handball European Championship – we won that match and went on to win the whole tournament, by the way.

In the third week of January, there was another meeting in the working party on IMI, which went really well. Also, we had our first meeting in the Trade Policy Committee (TPC) – basically the same as a working party – in the subgroup dedicated to services and investment. My attachés recently switched who will be the chair of the group on services, but I will keep following the work of that committee. The meetings mainly consist of the Commission informing/debriefing on recent negotiations with third countries, since the European Commission has a mandate to act on behalf of the EU member states in this field. It is pretty interesting albeit very technical.

That weekend, I went to Amsterdam with my fellow intern Charlotte. It was a fabolous trip; there's a separate blog post about it.

The last week of January was very busy indeed and full of first-ever experiences!

I went to my first meeting involving directly a member of the European Parliament (MEP for short), which was pretty cool. I also went to a lawyer-linguist review, which basically means a legal analysis of the language of new EU legislation. It sounds (and is) pretty dry, but it did provide an interesting view of one of the many functions that keep the whole EU machinery running.

The week was also really busy because the Danish government had to present the Danish Presidency priorities to the committees of the European Parliament. In the course of two days, 26 presentations were made by 16 different ministers from Denmark. This included four presentations by the minister for Business and Growth, whose ministry/section I work for at the Danish Representation. The whole thing was very successful and bodes well for the Danish Presidency.

Finally, the week was busy due to a number of events taking place around Brussels. Monday, I went to a reception concerning sustainable energy, which had an amazing selection of food and drinks. Wednesday, I was back at the Parliament for a reception hosted in honour of the Danish Presidency with the attendance of the Danish Minister for European Affairs, the Danish Commissioner and a number of Danish MEPs. That was another first to see those people. 

Thursday, I went to the concert hall at Place Flagey for the official opening concert of the Danish Presidency – attended again by the Minister for European Affairs, but also the President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy and the Crown Prince and Princess of both Denmark and Belgium. Pretty cool. The concert was with the Danish Radio Big Band – smooth and jazzy.

That weekend, we made dinner on Friday and caught up with the Danish season of X-Factor, and on Saturday, I went out for dinner and an improvised Brussels pub crawl with Charlotte.

The month ended with a informal summit of the European Council, which consists of the heads of state from all 27 member states. Among other things, agreement was reached on the new treaty on fiscal discipline in the Eurozone – an agreement that Denmark also chose to join. I didn't work specifically with this, and since all our working meetings were cancelled due to the summit, the office was full of people for a change. Furthermore, the meeting coincided with a national strike in Belgium, so it was a bit of an unusual day altogether.

On Tuesday, I held a dinner for some of the Danish interns and Wednesday, I went for dinner with some international interns.

It's been a really busy month, but it feels great to have started the Presidency. After all, this is what we're here for, and I believe we have made a great start! Also, I should mention that I'm not dating James anymore, which was tough at first, but I'm coping.

So, that was it for now. Congrats if you made it all the way through :) I will keep you posted on my further adventures in Brussels!


For the record; please note that this blog is entirely personal and has no official connection to the Danish Presidency of the EU Council 2012.

Amsterdam

Charlotte and I went for a weekend break in Amsterdam in the middle of January. She’s been there five times before whereas it was my first time there.

We took the train from Bruxelles Centrale at 2:30 on Friday and arrived in Amsterdam about three hours later. The trip there is rather uneventful, but it does go through the major cities of Rotterdam and The Hague. Amsterdam Centraal is just north of the city centre. From there, we took the tram to our hotel near Leidseplein. Let’s be honest; it wasn’t exactly luxury, but it was more than fine for a couple nights of sleep.

After checking into the hotel, we went out to take a look at the neighbourhood. We went to the supermarket and found a nice restaurant in Korte Leidsedwarsstraat. After a quick change back at the hotel, we went to the area Amstel near Rembrandtplein and the river. There, we tried out a range of the many bars and clubs: Club Nasty (and indeed it was), Cinema, Bolle Jan (first word means fat in Dutch and something else in Danish), Montmartre and Rogue. We had lots of fun and talked to some interesting people. Unfortunately, we also ran into some pickpockets, so my phone got stolen. Bummer, but oh well – nothing else happened to us.

The late night incident meant we had to start Saturday at the police station filing a report, but luckily the lady there was very helpful and efficient. We then started our day of sightseeing with a canal cruise, which started outside the train station. It’s somewhat similar to Copenhagen, only Amsterdam’s beautiful canals and 17th century architecture are much vaster. I’m definitely a great fan! 

Afterwards, we walked around the town centre, the shopping street, the royal palace and the area of Nine Streets. 

We ended up at Anne Frank’s House, where we had tickets for a presentation and tour Saturday night. The story of their hiding and eventual capturing during World War II is very moving and captivating, and the house pays great tribute to the Frank family’s story.

From there we walked through the Red Light District and found a cool and chic restaurant in the centre called Brasserie Harkema. After a quick stop at the hotel, we went to the area around Leidseplein and checked out a few different bars; Njoy was a fancy cocktail lounge and Pirates was less fancy and more full of crazy teenagers.

Sunday was a beautiful day, so we decided to rent bikes and see Amsterdam from a saddle. I’ve drawn our route on the map below, and as you can see, we covered quite a bit of ground – about 10 miles / 16 kilometers.

We started out at the Van Gogh Museum, which was very nice and neatly sized. Next we went on to G-Star Raw, which I had to visit since it’s one of my favourite brands and happens to be Dutch.

From there, we headed west through the neighbourhood of Jordan with more beautiful canals and a stop at a lovely café. Then through the city centre, where we stopped for an Italian lunch. Finally, we made a big loop to the east, circling the zoo and a more industrial area. The final stretch back along one of the outer canals was pretty windy, but all in all it was a fantastic way of seeing the city!

We had a goodbye pancake, handed in the bicycles and bought a few souvenirs before heading back to Amsterdam Centraal to catch our train to Brussels at 8.

Awesome weekend – loving Amsterdam!