I first want to point out that as I write this, I'm having an amazing 6 euro dinner. It consists of a 3 euro bottle of Spanish red wine, a pear, Camembert, and a baguette. Absolutely perfect. Eating like a student here is way easier than back in London. Hopefully I can retain these eating habits (which is what I said when I came back from France in 2004, but that didn't really work...)
Well, today was a packed day. We started off at the European Commission at 10am. Our presenter was a Danish fellow hired by the commission . He explained the European Commission, which is essentially the executive body of the EU. They have political and visionary power, but no legislative power. Essentially, they dictate to/advise the other institutions on which direction they want the Union to go in, and give advice on their legislation and directives.
The Commission essentially acts like the Cabinet of a country. So the Minister of Agriculture in Canada would contact the Commissioner for Agriculture to discuss matters of agricultural trade between Canada in the EU. Each country has one commissioner responsible for a different portfolio. Beneath those commissioners are Directorate Generals and below them is a directorate. Each directorate has different units that are responsible for specific policy issues. It sounds like a simple breakdown.
And then you bring in the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice, the Council of the European Union and the European Council (there is also the Council of Europe, but that has nothing to do with the EU). I feel like the administration and institutions of the EU are all waaaaaay too complicated. Because they're so complex, some world leaders (Barack Obama was mentioned a couple of times with reference to the Spanish Visit to the White House) cannot figure out which institution of the EU to contact regarding certain matters and just goes to the national governments.
But I was discussing it with some people in my program: "Why don't they just have 'the European Union' and then divide the organization into 'Executive' and 'Legislative' or 'Representational' branches?"
We came to the conclusion that It's because of the attitudes within the member states. If you create the leadership of the EU in that model, it resembles that of a state too much. A common theme we've been getting from all our presenters is that member states are not ready to hand over a lot of power to the EU.
However this makes it difficult for the EU to function properly and efficiently because national governments want to show their electorate that they are still in control of anything of national interest.
This conflict plagues the EU, but its slowly changing. More and more powers are being granted to the EU, but at a slow pace--which is most likely the safest way to build the Union into a Federation (which is personally what I would like to see happen).
Our next visit was to the International Federation of Journalists. That was an interesting visit. We managed to work it into the program because of the human rights that journalists are entitled to (as they are human too) are often ignored during conflict and even in some countries where conflict is not necessarily evident.
We discussed the freedom of the press quite a bit. It interestingly tied in with our discussion on the definition of democracy that we had that the Council of the European Union. Our speaker there suggested that Italy's press, of which 90% is owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, isn't a free press because of the government ownership. Similarly, our speaker from the IFJ, Ernest Sagaga, suggested that a free press is the only way to have a truly free democracy because people need to know the truth. It certainly provided a view that I wasn't used to on democracy and freedom of speech.
Lastly, we visited the Canadian Mission to the EU. It was really interesting considering that at the US Mission, we had to leave pretty much everything behind and be escorted through the entire building (they even stood outside the stall door when you went to the bathroom. Talk about pressure.) After checking all our bags and passports, the security guard at the Canadian Mission left us alone in the front to go get our presenter. We Canadians are much more trusting apparently.
The first guy at the Canadian Mission (Jared something-or-other) explained essentially how the Mission worked. I didn't find his talk very informative and he seemed very defensive to our questions, which I found odd as I didn't think that our questions were very aggressive...just inquisitional. But the second speaker, Holly Edwards (Counsellor Immigration), spoke to us about immigration to Canada from the EU, migration within the EU, and answered our questions really well.
There was much discussion about the Roma people and the visas that are required for the Czech Republic. Because of so many asylum applicants from the Roma minority in the Czech Republic, Canada reinstated (for the second time) its visa requirement on Czech citizens.
The entire time though, I wondered about legislation in the EU about the Roma compared to Canadian legislation on aboriginal affairs. The Roma, being a migratory people, are a large problem in Europe because they have such trouble integrating into European Society. But the conflict lies in that the EU isn't allowed to dictate their culture, which rotates around migration and temporary settlements. So which takes priority? The European culture of permanent cities and citizenship of a state or the Roma culture of loyalty to a family group and migratory living?
The EU has an initiative and a legal obligation to respect the rights of minorities, so how can that the EU (or any state for that matter) integrate the Roma?
I compare them to the First Nations within Canada because they follow their own law upon their own lands. They act as an autonomous entity from the Confederation of Canada and that raises issues of integration which can be obviously seen in the separation of the Native populations on reserves throughout the country. This question of integration seems to resonate quite strongly between the EU and Canada.
Anyways, we took a few pictures by the entrance to the city of Brussels. So here are a few:
Cheers!
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