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
