Only in Brussels: the tram (7) leaves from the terminus (Vandenkindere) - and then waits at the next stop (Churchill) for 20 minutes! What a logic, behind this schedule...

Wonderful new train station, well designed counters - and no chance to catch the next train (even with a Belgian bank card!) - FAIL

A lot has been said in recent years about EU institutions being unable to connect to citizens. For all the sense of urgency to tackle this in the aftermath of the disaster of the French Non and Dutch Nee to the Constitutional Treaty, I have not seen a fundamental change in Brussels. Margot Wallström, the Commissioner for Communication who tried to do something about it, was regarded by most institutional insiders as a troublemaker, her portfolio dissolved in the second Barroso Commission.

The causes for this are manifold, here I just want to focus on two crucial aspects:

1. communication as part of policy making, and
2. the ability of the bureaucratic apparatus to adapt to modern patterns of mass communication.

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