Spring Break, Part 1

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I meant to update before I left for the long study tour and spring break, but first I was sick for a week and then it was crunch time with midterms and papers and such. But, don't worry, I should be back to a more normal schedule now. You probably want to hear about my travels around Europe though. So I shall begin.

With a 13-hour bus ride to Brussels.

In order to get to our travel bus on time, Benny had to drive me to the train station on Sunday morning, the 9th of March. It was only about 7:00 in the morning, but the bus that runs by my house wasn't running yet. We departed Copenhagen at 8, and then went pretty much straight to Brussels, stopping only for EU-mandated breaks for our driver. We took a ferry to the German border, then drove through the Netherlands, and onto Belgium. My tour took us to Brussels before Amsterdam, so it required some doubling back, but it wasn't horrible. The difference between a ten and thirteen hour ride is somewhat negligible at that point.

Our hotel in Belgium was rather interesting. We stayed at the Maison du Dragon, a Chinese owned and operated hotel across from a couple of strip clubs. One of the other groups was able to stay at a different hotel, but I guess they didn't have space to book us there. No matter, it was fairly close walking distance from the main part of downtown, so it really didn't matter. While we were in Brussels, DIS took us to a couple of nice restaurants that we definitely wouldn't have been able to afford ourselves. We also went to the Delirium bar, one of the most famous in Brussels -- the sort of place the travel guides tell you to go to, for their wide selection of Belgian beers. They didn't disappoint.

What also didn't disappoint was Brussels' status as the 'Capital of Europe.' We started off by visiting the the Council of Ministers building, and we actually got a lecture and Q+A session with the personal representative of Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy. Solana is essentially the foreign minister of the EU (but don't call him that!), so man we met was a pretty big deal. We actually got to meet him in one of the conference rooms used by the Councils. It was only on the second floor, so the top meetings of the foreign ministers probably didn't meet there, but there was some sort of meeting going on in the next room over. The building was all abuzz because on Thursday of that week (it was Monday at that point) the European Council was convening. The European Council is the highest level of meetings, and is not technically part of the Council of Ministers. The European Council is the meeting of all 27 heads of state and government that make up the European Union. It was an exciting time to be there.

Across the street from the Council of Ministers building is the Berlaymont, where the European Commission has its offices. We didn't get to go there, but it was good to see. It was really nice to be in Robert Schuman Circle, and on Rue de Loi/Wetstraat, the main center of the European Union. Especially after studying the EU in some form or another since my freshman year, it was great to really be able to see it firsthand.

The next day, Tuesday, we had our political actor interviews. We were divided up into groups of four, and we were set up with interviews with people who worked with or lobbied the EU. Our job was, as our instructor is so fond of saying, to find out "how they play the game." My group interviewed Arni Snævarr, an Information Officer for the United Nations Regional Infomation Center in Brussels. In an assignment to find out how people lobby the EU, UNRIC was an anomaly. They don't actually try and influence the EU at all, and outside of handling dissemination of information, the only thing the Brussels UN office does is handle technical accounting aspects of EU development aid. As part of our assignment, we had to write a short report on what we found. If anyone is interested, I can provide the report.

Later that day, we went to the Danish diplomatic mission in Brussels, which houses both the Danish embassy as well as the offices of the ambassadors the EU. We had another lecture and Q+A session with the main Danish ambassador to the EU. These ambassadors are part of COREPER - the Committee of Permanent Representatives from each country to the EU. COREPER is attatched to the Council of Ministers, and take care of the technical and day-to-day affairs. A lot of decisions are made at this level, and then simply approved by the relevent Council. He was definitely a diplomat, giving very long-winded answers to seemingly simple questions. It was interesting, but he lost the interest of a lot of people. In addition, it was very hot in the room.

For the previous meeting, we had met up with the group that had gone to Amsterdam first, and then on Wednesday we went to NATO headquarters. There we had two lecture/Q+A sessions. The first was with a NATO PR official. It was an interesting point he made. While he was an American, he had to speak with whatever NATO's viewpoint was. He said this put him in an unusual position, when, on a week-long trip to Macedonia, he was not allowed to make any reference to the name of the country! The name controversy with Greece has put NATO in an awkward position. The second meeting was with an American Foreign Service official, who then did speak on the American positions within NATO. Both men talked about the challenges NATO was facing in the post-Cold War world. They also both agreed on the importance of success in Afghanistan as critical to maintaining the legitimacy of NATO.

As an aside, it is important to note that we went to NATO's political headquarters, not the military headquarters, formally known as SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe). SHAPE is also in Belgium, however.

From NATO, we went back into Brussels proper and visited the European Parliament building. In a nutshell, it's huge and elaborate. The EP was not actually there, however. That week they were in Strasbourg. For those not in the know, the EP splits its time between two seperate buildings. Three weeks in Brussels, and then they pack everything up and go to Strasbourg for a week. Then they pack everything back up and return to Brussels. It's hilariously inefficient, but is a somewhat intractable political problem, as how do you convince France to give up ownership of one of the European institutions? We were able to see the plenary chamber in use anyway, though. Because the Parliament was in Strasbourg, some sort of seperate economic committee was meeting, and they follow parliamentary procedure as well. Sitting on the observation deck, we could see the members voting, flipping through papers, and the like. We also had access to the simultaneous translations into many different languages. The European Parliament is actually the largest employer of translators in the world, and not the UN as might be expected.

That night we left for Amsterdam. Upon waking in the morning, we went to The Hague, where we visited the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. This is actually the shortened name, which in full is The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991. I will accept their nonclamenture and simply refer to it as the ICTY. We got an overview of how the tribunal functions and the like. In addition, we got to sit in the public gallery and watch a trial in session. There was a witness testifying about the measures taken to ensure the safety of civilians (or lack thereof). The other group apparantly heard a witness testifying about being subjected to torture. Even though our witness did not have the emotional impact of the other one, I still felt it was really important to see the ICTY actually functioning. These are truely international courts, trying cases of crimes against humanity...and their building used to be a big insurance office. Just so you know.

The last academic stop on the tour was at the University of Amsterdam, where we had yet another lecture and Q+A session. This time, it was with a Dutch professor, who talked about the Dutch rejection via referendum of the 2004 Constitutional Treaty of the EU. Our instructor took a few shots at the professor, making fun of the fact that it was The Netherlands' first referendum and they 'screwed it up' (the Danes have much more of a tradition of referenda). The professor explained that the Dutch government is not as well connected to the people as it may seem, and the anti-EU vote can be partially seen as a rejection of the government. He stressed the point that the Dutch specifically, and most Europeans generally, are not against the EU.

Going back in time slightly, while in Brussels we did go to a chocolate factory, which was not actually as interesting as you might expect. On the other hand, the free samples were excellent. In Amsterdam, we got to go to a Vincent van Gogh museum, and we also got to take a boat tour of the canals. The canal tour was in a glassed in boat, and the glass was somewhat dirty, so the views weren't as nice as they could have been. Still, it was nice. When all was said and done, some people hung around the city for a few hours and then went back to Copenhagen on the bus. Others, like me, took off from Amsterdam.

Flying to Berlin was straightfoward; Schipol airport is quite nice. And so the 'vacation' part of my spring break began.