The EU (or whatever)

Brussels cobbles look their best in the rain - November 2009

I’m booked on Eurostar to Brussels next Monday.  A handful of us (some from the UK, others from Europe-wide networks) have a meeting at the European Commission to talk about intercultural/all-faiths-&-none groups across Europe.

So, what is the European Commission?  It’s part of the EU – the civil service bit of it, led by commissioners from each EU country – but with more of an active role than the UK civil service, for example it’s responsible for proposing EU legislation as well as implementing it.

It’s not the European Council (EU heads of state), the European Parliament (MEPs) nor what is often called the Council of Ministers (government ministers from EU member states).

Most of these bits of the EU seem to have presidents – either a person or a country:

• Herman Van Rompuy is President of the European Council
• Hungary is the President of the Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers, I think)
• Jerzy Buzek is the President of the European Parliament
• José Manuel Barroso is the President of the European Commission

There’s also the sinister-sounding European External Action Service, led by the UK’s Catherine Ashton.

If you go boss-eyed with unrelenting bright blue backgrounds, tiny print, yellow stars and hopelessly high “Europe” & “Council” word-counts when you search the Euro-web, this little diagram from The EU – What’s in it for me? will help:

So, now you know ;)

I’ll ask the Eurobloggers (& see the list of Europe links on left of this blog) to check this post for accuracy, but it’s making me feel dizzy already.

I love Brussels.  I’ll be taking my best English, my schoolgirl French and my shaking-hands way of saying hello.