Ariel 'Foreign Bureau'

By Oana Lungescu, European regional correspondent, BBC World Service, Brussels, 22 March 2005

Last year, I interviewed a 90-year old former aide to Jean Monnet [one of the founders of the European Union] about the beginnings of the European project.

We were trying to create a new world order after the war, he said. The Europe he helped build is tremendously ambitious, though often confusing. Take the Berlaymont, the star-shaped headquarters of the European Commission, recently reopened after a 13 year face-lift costing half a billion euro.

One morning, I got lost on the 13th floor, wandering through vast empty areas with bits of electric wire still hanging from the walls and grey corridors lined with identical doors. The commissioner I was supposed to interview and the security people looked just as bewildered.

Conveniently, though, the Berlaymont is just across the street from our office, one of the BBC's biggest and busiest bureaux.

For the 25 correspondents and producers here, it’s a stroll into the commission’s daily mid-day briefing, where a multi-national army of spokespeople takes questions on topics ranging from the delivery of EU aid to tsunami victims (the EU is the world’s biggest aid donor) to a long-overdue move to cut red tape.

Wrong side of history

Why do we need 58 directives on tractors, the EU industry commissioner asked. Why indeed. But these briefings are also social events in a small pleasant city where everyone knows just about everyone else.

Over a cappuccino at the press bar, you can discuss emerging stories with a German, a Spaniard, a Czech or any of the other 3000 journalists, as well as diplomats and officials from the EU’s 25 member states.

Stories here are complex affairs, reflecting shifting alliances and the power struggle among EU institutions, so a quick call to a Dane or a Pole can sometimes save you from swallowing a particular national spin at a summit.

Some of this complexity is the result of ten mostly former communist countries joining the EU last year, the story I’ve been following (together with the parallel expansion of NATO) ever since the European region of the World Service sent me to Brussels on a three month attachment.

Hush-hush dinners

Back in 1997, my far-sighted bosses realised that enlargement was a very big story. Charting the political twists and turns in Brussels, but also the fears and hopes of people across Europe – from Polish farmers to Estonian IT whiz kids – has been tremendously exciting, especially for someone like me who grew up in Romania on what felt like the wrong side of history.

It’s also tremendously busy, as I file not only for English outlets and online, but especially for the many language services.

One of the highlights of each year is trying to scoop the competition by getting hold of the European Commission’s closely guarded and politically sensitive progress reports on the countries aspiring to EU membership. No easy matter, as the reports amount to hundreds of pages.

It may take cloak-and-dagger encounters with anonymous diplomats or hush-hush dinners with commissioners, but somehow it has worked every time.

And with several countries including Romania, Croatia and Turkey still eagerly waiting in line, the referendums on the European constitution just beginning, lots of controversial directives in the pipeline and the British presidency of the EU in the second half of the year, life will continue to be anything but dull in the Brussels bureau.

^

Back to top