Pre-Impressions
I expect that we will be touring the European Union (EU) Parliament building and learning more about the EU Parliament and the roles that it has. I expect that we will learn a little bit about some of the decisions that the Parliament has to make. I also expect to meet some people who work at the EU Parliament in Brussels and learn more about the role that they have within the Parliament. Finally, I hope that we will be able to see the EU Parliament Assembly Room.
Post-Impressions
I was a little disappointed that we just listened to a presentation for most of the time that we were at the EU Parliament. I had hoped that we would be able to tour around the Parliament building and then learn more about the EU Parliament while on the tour. We learned about the role of the EU Parliament, which includes tasks such as passing laws and adopting the budget for the EU. The EU Parliament has representatives from all 28 countries in the EU, and that there are 751 members of the Parliament. I was a little surprised that there were this many representatives, but it makes sense since there are 28 countries to represent. My favorite part of the tour was seeing the Assembly Room. It was cool to see the setup and imagine how it would look when filled with all of the representatives.
The EU Parliament is a good example of regional integration. "Regional integration includes a multitude of economic and/or political steps that may be taken by member states of a union to increase their global competitiveness—not only preferential trade access" (Gaspar Chapter 3). The EU is an example of an economic and monetary union that coordinates economic policy. It is not yet a political union, however, because all of the countries do not behave as just one country. Regional integration has many benefits including "creating a large pool of consumers, encouraging economies of scale in production, and increasing cooperation and peace among member countries." There are also some disadvantages, however, including "imposing laws and regulations that are uniform, and that at times do not take into account national economic, cultural and social differences, losing sovereignty, and reducing powers of the national government" (Gaspar Chapter 3). The Parliamentarium that we went to was valuable because it told us about some of the history of Belgium and Europe, including many of the major events that took place. It is important to remind EU citizens of their history so that they can learn from the past mistakes, and also repeat things that they did in the past that worked well.
http://europa.eu/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-parliament/index_en.htm
I expect that we will be touring the European Union (EU) Parliament building and learning more about the EU Parliament and the roles that it has. I expect that we will learn a little bit about some of the decisions that the Parliament has to make. I also expect to meet some people who work at the EU Parliament in Brussels and learn more about the role that they have within the Parliament. Finally, I hope that we will be able to see the EU Parliament Assembly Room.
Post-Impressions
I was a little disappointed that we just listened to a presentation for most of the time that we were at the EU Parliament. I had hoped that we would be able to tour around the Parliament building and then learn more about the EU Parliament while on the tour. We learned about the role of the EU Parliament, which includes tasks such as passing laws and adopting the budget for the EU. The EU Parliament has representatives from all 28 countries in the EU, and that there are 751 members of the Parliament. I was a little surprised that there were this many representatives, but it makes sense since there are 28 countries to represent. My favorite part of the tour was seeing the Assembly Room. It was cool to see the setup and imagine how it would look when filled with all of the representatives.
The EU Parliament is a good example of regional integration. "Regional integration includes a multitude of economic and/or political steps that may be taken by member states of a union to increase their global competitiveness—not only preferential trade access" (Gaspar Chapter 3). The EU is an example of an economic and monetary union that coordinates economic policy. It is not yet a political union, however, because all of the countries do not behave as just one country. Regional integration has many benefits including "creating a large pool of consumers, encouraging economies of scale in production, and increasing cooperation and peace among member countries." There are also some disadvantages, however, including "imposing laws and regulations that are uniform, and that at times do not take into account national economic, cultural and social differences, losing sovereignty, and reducing powers of the national government" (Gaspar Chapter 3). The Parliamentarium that we went to was valuable because it told us about some of the history of Belgium and Europe, including many of the major events that took place. It is important to remind EU citizens of their history so that they can learn from the past mistakes, and also repeat things that they did in the past that worked well.
http://europa.eu/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-parliament/index_en.htm