My European Adventure: Trip to the European Union

Soooo, today we took a trip to visit the European Union Headquarters in Brussels. It was pretty much awesome but a lot different then I expected. Security wasn't really that high. In fact, if someone wanted to, I think that unfortunately they could easily cause some damage. Although I do have to say a friend of mine from Austria wanted to take a picture of the security there and they came over to her and watched her delete them. He didn't even go through the other pictures of hers to make sure they were all gone. She couldn't understand why they would do this, which I think is funny because I can understand why they didn't do more.

For those of you who are wanting more pictures of the EU, I hate to disappoint you...but you cannot take pictures most places. You can check out the big round room where they all sit online though by googling European Union Headquarters and then clicking on images. I posted a picture below that I found online because I think it might help in explaining to you what I learned.

Ok, so each of these seats belongs to a member of the union/representative. They are all given a number which you can only see from the front so that they are easier to distinguish. What you also can't see from this picture is that every seat comes equipped with a built-in head-set. You can flip through channels until you get to the channel with your language. Currently, there are 27 members/countries in the European Union, some with more than one official national language.Obviously, representatives aren't expected to speak every language so they give their speeches in their native language. Then translators translate it for round one.

Round two translations are for rarer languages. Often times, it is impractical to have someone present to translate every language (or impossible). So round two translations are done by translators who may not know the first language but they know the second. Keep in mind it takes time to translate it, so the member will give their speech in their native language, 5 seconds later you will hear the first translation, then 15-20 seconds later you will hear the second round. This often leads to an effect they like to call the Mexican wave. That's where people stand up and clap before others are even finished hearing what goes on. The first round of people (natives) stand up, followed by the first translation, and then the second.

In case your confused, what I mean by round I and II translations would be:

I speak in Croatian, but there is no one that can translate Croatian to Dutch at the moment. There is an English translator always available. So, the first translation is from Croation to English, the second is from English to Dutch. Confusing?!? Yes! But really neat to see and not so hard to actually understand when you get there.

After viewing a morning session, we were taken into a small conference room where we had the opportunity to meet and speak with a member of the Green Party. It just so happened that this man was also Belgian. His name is Phillipe Lamberts and I posted his picture below.

He was extremely nice and answered any questions we had.... including ones that I thought were exceptionally hard. From him, I learned why the Turkish people are not currently part of the European Union. Although he still spoke like a politician, he pretty much laid all the cards out on the table.

In order to be a member of the EU, everyone has to vote you in. When you become a member you have the same rights every other EU member has. One in particular is the ability to travel from country to country in the EU freely. That is, your not going to get stopped at security checkpoints. For the first time in EU history, the EU voted on Turkey and decided it would grant them something called partial membership. This has never been done before and would have given Turkey all the rights other EU members without the ability to travel freely. Viewing this as discrimination, they Turkish people declined this offer.

The EU also has a shop where you can pick up promotional/policy/legal materials in every language. Everything in this store is free, and I was able to get a giant map of Europe written in Dutch. I think I'll mark off all the places I've been.

When we left, we were also able to see a special exhibit outside the Headquarters commemorating the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. I was also able to see the original "check-point" Charlie which has temporarily been moved from its home in Germany.