BBC - Around the World - Ariel's 'Foreign Bureau' - 15 June 2004

By Shirin Wheeler, correspondent, Brussels, 15 June 2004

I came back from maternity leave just in time for the start of the election campaign for the European Parliament. MEPs were winding up their business with two sessions in Strasbourg – with only a week between them.

So producer Ailsa McCarthy and I plus small child, pushchair, car seat, breast pump, computers and so on, piled onto the train with the rest of the EU circus.

I’ve done the monthly trip to Strasbourg around 60 times now.

The journey’s long – by train, five hours – and the political rationale for a parliamentary seat here as well as in Brussels is dubious.

But I really like this Franco-German city. I also like being reminded that there is more to the EU than Brussels.

I’ve been in Brussels as a Europe correspondent for seven years mainly covering the European Parliament.

I’m now presenting the weekly discussion programme, The Record Europe, for BBC Parliament. As well as a new baby; I have a six year old.

The train to Strasbourg is ideal for getting briefed. There are so many officials, press officers and MEPs, we’re spoilt for sources whether on the latest directive on GM products or the Parliament’s position on data protection.

Ailsa and I set up most of The Record Europe in the train – between feeds and nappy changes!

Apart from the occasional exploding bag of frozen expressed milk, travelling with the baby proves to be no more stressful than sitting with some particularly insistent press officers.

My two-day-a-week salary doesn't stretch to a nanny to travel with me, but I’ve managed to get the baby a place in the Parliament crèche alongside the MEPs’ and functionaries’ offspring for the days I’m in Strasbourg. It’s full of Danish, Greek and French babies gurgling and yelping happily.

My little Brussels sprout on the other hand is whimpering as I leave her. But, as I rush off to film some links and interviews around the chamber, I comfort myself with the idea that she might be a linguist in the making.

Three hours later we’ve recorded the programme in the studio and I’m back to give her a feed.

A producer from Millbank rings to tell me the line’s up in five minutes to do a pre-recorded slot about the session on This Week in Westminster on Radio 4. Does that suit?

Juggling mobile phone and baby, my dedication to breast feeding is definitely being tested.

Back in Brussels for a slightly less hectic pace.

The Green MEPs would be proud of me. We hardly need to use the car here.

Public transport is good and my six year old and I still don’t tire of using the trams. But most of the time we walk – out of the house by 8am, through the park to school which is French-speaking and strict.

The BBC bureau is round the corner from school, the European Commission opposite and the Parliament down the hill. This is a small city – on a very human scale. Strange when you consider the image ‘Brussels’ has as a huge malevolent force in the consciousness of many Britons.