Thundar Hanging Out at the Headquarters

One main focus of the Fall Semester in Europe with CGI was learning about the European Union.  So naturally, while Thundar was in Europe, he got to see many of the European Union headquarter buildings. Here you can see him in Strasbourg, France, at one of the parliament buildings. 

 

Yes I did say one—the European Union has another parliament building located in Brussels, Belgium.
Why? You may ask. Well, the European Union has had a hard job trying to unify Europe, so they’ve done several things to help keep things equal and fair across the countries—since all the country’s are equal, it would be hard to choose a single location for the headquarter buildings. As a result, the main buildings of the European Union are spread between France, Luxembourg, and Belgium! Twelve parliament sessions are held in Strasbourg each year, while extra sessions and committee meetings are held in Brussels. Luxembourg also has important parliament buildings where secretariat of the European Parliament (the administrative body of the European Parliament) conducts most of their work.

The parliament isn’t the only institution of the European Union that Thundar saw. He also saw the European Commission and the Council of the European Union in Brussels (though similar to the parliament, both of these institutions sometimes meet in Luxembourg).

As you can imagine, the current set up of the European Union institutions isn’t exactly efficient. Politicians have to move around constantly and spend a lot of money simply on the transportation of all their materials they need in their offices too. There have been several proposals for locating the parliament in one place, but while most agree that this is a good idea, there is much less agreement on which location is best… Belgium wants to keep it in Brussels, Luxembourg thinks Luxembourg is a nice location, and France likes having it in Strasbourg.

But in the time being… to see the headquarter buildings in all three countries requires a bit of traveling. Something Thundar didn’t mind one bit as he gallivanted across the European countryside and took in all the other sites along the way!

-Alyda