Thursday December 20, 2007 |
Thursday December 20, 2007 Republican DemocracayWe then walked over to the European Quarter, as we wanted to visit the debating chamber of the European Parliament. We went via the Place Jourdain, where we bought some 'frittes' from Maison Antoinne. This is a stall which has an arrangement with the surrounding bars so you can eat indoors and warm up with your drink of choice, coffee or schnapps. The parliament building permits visits to the debating chamber, as they should;, we pay for it. So we went there and had a look round.
Outside the the building there are plaques and flags for each of the member states, together with a statue of a women holding the Euro symbol. The buildings are contemporary and stark contrast to the Hapsburg grandeur of the Upper Town. In the park beside the parliament building is a section of the Berlin Wall, with its graffiti presumably untouched from when it was in Berlin. One of the wipeout games we play at home is 'countries of the EU', this is fun because its changing so rapidly and because of the various states that countries can occupy. States can be in negotiation to join, members, euro zone members or Schengen treaty signatories. So when we entered the chamber, hanging above the chamber are the the translation booths, and while there are 27 member states, there are 23 official languages, so one booth for each language really brought home the linguistic diversity of today's European Union. tags: culture europe belgium bruxelles travel EU democracy euparliament language 
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