The Capital of Europe

Well, when we were told that the McCloy program would keep you busy, they were not kidding!! After our night in Cologne it was off to a new country. A country that contains the capital city of Europe. We were headed to Belgium. The land where chocolate is king and monks have perfected the art of brewing beer. Our Belgium story starts in Brussels, where we met one of our DBV hosts, Ludwig Borger.

We are now off and running, with Ludwig...and our luggage, to catch a train so we can hike a little farther to the DBV office that sits near the new European Union parliament building. Talk about location, location, location. We all settled into the office where we met another DBV staffer, Tiffanie Stephani. Ludwig and Tiffanie discussed what the DBV's activities are in Brussels and their dealing with the European Union. First, they gave us the run down on how the European Parliament works. By the time we are said and done with this trip, we will be able to fit right in in German and European politics!

They explained that the European Union is an overseeing body of government of European member states, of which there is now 28, for issues that have an impact over all of Europe. The basic tenants on how the EU decides whether a policy belong in a member state's control or EU Parliament's control is through subsidarity and proportionality. This means that the most local level of government that can achieve the desired goal should be used. What this means is that the Common Agricultural Policy is a policy they see managed best in a Europe wide sense. So, the EU writes the framework of the farm program for the member states to implement. It sounds like it keeps our brothers and sisters at the DBV busy.

So after learning about the EU and its Parliament, we were off to the Parliament building, at least until I realized I didn't bring my passport, to meet with Dr. Andreas Schneider, the Agricultural Advisor to the European People's Party. Here we discussed the new Common Agriculture Policy. Dr. SCHNEIDER was fairly disappointed in the direction the CAP went as he saw its prescriptive nature putting German and all European farmers at a disadvantage when competing with other farmers from around the globe from Brazil, Argentina, and the United States. We also discussed TTIP yet again and the long road that it must travel with all of the complexities that it entails, with ag being part of that.

After this meeting, we headed down and saw the room where the Parliament meets and actually just walked right in through the doors and stood on the floor. This was pretty incredible, especially to a Colorado lobbyist who cannot even set foot on a chamber floor! We then saw a committee room where the ag committee meets. One thing we took away from this is how modern the building was. It was recently constructed and the architecture seemed to take pride that it was modern, as compared to our governing buildings that we seem to take pride in the architecture and design being from the past. Very different mind sets.

We then popped over to the Parliamentarian, which is a museum that is dedicated to the beginning, the past, the present and the future of the European Union. It is a great with many interactive displays and an immense amount of information about what was happening in the world as the EU was starting. I wouldn't be surprised if we all learned more in the hour we were there than in all eight years of high school and college.

The last meeting of the day was with Pekka PESONEN who is the Secretary General of COPA*COGECA. This is an organization of other farm and agricultural cooperative organizations. Farmers realized the importance of coming together in one organization to work with a parliament of multiple countries. Mr. PESONEN stressed the importance of ag having one voice for all of Europe to be effective in securing the needs of European farmers and creating policy that benefits them and the industry. We again had interesting discussions about the CAP, TTIP and exactly how his organization works.

That was our last meeting for the day, but we still needed to eat dinner. We went back to the office to do some more hiking with our luggage so we could check into the hotel. We ended up eating at a steak house called Meet Meat. It was good to be eating a steak again with some fantastic Belgium beer. While we were at dinner we met Eugen Kohler, who also works for the DBV in Brussels part time as well as the organization in Bavaria. After dinner, we headed to Platz Luxumberg where every Thursday night they have a bit of a party in the street near the Parliament building. After having a beer and chatting for a bit, we were given a night tour by Eugene on the way back to the hotel. There were some absolutely astonishing views of the city.

We had another day and a half in Brussels, but you will need to check that out on the next post.


Cheers,


Nick