On January 28th I arrived in Brussels, Belgium to complete an internship with the US State Department's Mission to the European Union (USEU). While in Brussels I am renting a room from a couple living in the Woluwe-Saint-Lambert municipality of Brussels. They have a dog, Happy, and a daughter and several months-old grandson who live just outside Brussels in the village of Tervuren, who I visited with the grandparents the Saturday after I arrived. Outside of briefly leaving Brussels, I spent much of my first weekend here exploring the city. Which, of course, mainly meant me wandering around getting a feel for the city. I did, however, accomplish some useful tasks, such as scoping out where my internship is located and purchasing a new SIM card and a metro card (which amusingly has the word 'Illinois" over my head in the photo section since the employee scanned my driver's license for a photo). I also stopped by the European Quarter, where several of the main institutions of the European Union are located. The metro stop was right beside the European Commission, and across the street from the European Council.
January 31st was my first day on the job. To my surprise, the department of the US Mission to the EU that I am working in is the US-European Media Hub. The Media Hub's mission statement is to “promote transatlantic relations by connecting U.S. policy makers and experts with European radio and television broadcasters. The Hub also provides information on U.S. policy and positions in video format to media outlets and the European public.” Thus the Media Hub contains a video studio, and the other interns working there are tasked with interviewing visitors and promoting the work of the US Mission. While formally a part of the US Mission to the EU, the Media Hub also works with the two other American embassies located in Brussels – the bilateral American Embassy to Belgium, and the US Mission to NATO.
As a political science student concentrating in international relations, my role at the Media Hub is a bit different. My primary responsibility as the Media Analysis Intern is to assist Foreign Service Officers in drafting the 'EUR Early Alert', a daily analysis of the European press read by senior policy-makers in Washington and at posts in Europe. Each day, the Media Hub receives a large quantity of information from US embassies in Russia, Turkey, and 8 EU member-states about the media environment in those countries, on the commentary coming out of the European press on the major happenings of the day, and on public views and perceptions in those countries of American policies. Our task at the Media Hub is to sift through all this information and create a one or occasionally two page report that succinctly summarizes what the Europeans are saying about the issues of the day for senior officials in Washington and elsewhere – and to do so early enough that the Early Alert will be received by officials in Washington at the start of their day. The Early Alert would generally focus on three or four topics that are being talked about across the European press, but with everything going on in the Middle East and North Africa, this week has been the exception. As a result, thus far we have focused on reactions and analysis of what is going on in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, with special attention to perceptions and evaluations of US policy towards what is happening.
I contributed a little to the Early Alert on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I was listed as a co-drafter on the reports. Monday I did not make a contribution, as upon arrival I did not even have access to the internal State Department network. Nor did I have a security badge. So my first day interning at the State Department primarily consisted of being led around by the administrative assistant to complete all the necessary registrations and paperwork to be able to work autonomously. The bit of productive work I accomplished on my first day was to help the director of the Media Hub research and plan what she should cover at the Munich Security Conference, which she would be attending on Thursday. I also had the chance to sit in on Media Hub interviews of three Afghans – among them a head of an Afghan human rights organization and a member of the Afghan Parliament.
Tuesday began with orientation and security briefings, which eventually led to me receiving a security badge. I also took advantage of one perk of working for the government – being able to exchange in the embassy my American Express Traveler's Checks at the actual Dollar-Euro exchange rate, rather than the highly inflated rates I had seen elsewhere in Brussels. With the security badge in hand I was able to enter the bilateral embassy to pick up lunch at the cafeteria on my own – I was pleasantly surprised that the paninis served there are quite good (and include some unexpected combinations like cheese, ham, and pineapple). I arrived back at the Media Hub (which is down the street from most of the other embassy buildings) in time to contribute to Tuesday's Early Alert. After work I met up with some of the other USEU interns for a movie night – the film we watched was rather appropriately the political Frost/Nixon from 2008.
Wednesday was the first day I was available to help work on the EUR Early Alert from start to finish. The first step in the process is sending out a tasker email to the 10 embassies with a list of topics we want information on from the national media. To create the tasker we at the Media Hub skim the International Herald Tribune (the global version of the New York Times) and several European newspapers to get a sense of what reporters and commentators are focusing on that day. After sending out that guidance I spent the time waiting for feedback from the embassies by reading up on how the situation in Egypt and the broader region has evolved and what commentators in the English-language publications I can read are saying about, among other things, the US response to the protests in Egypt, whether Western leaders should negotiate with or fear the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and what the likelihood is of the protests in Egypt causing a domino effect across the region that topples similar authoritarian regimes. Probably the most strongly debated topic is whether we are seeing the beginning of the Arab version of the revolutions of 1989 (when the Eastern European communist regimes fell, to be replaced by stable democracies that are mostly members of the EU and NATO today) or whether we are going to see a repeat of the 1979 Iranian revolution (when a brutal secular dictatorship that was aligned with the United States was toppled by a broad range of protestors, only to be replaced by an equally or even more brutal and strongly anti-American theocracy).
After we completed Wednesday's Early Alert, I attended a conference I had been invited to the previous day. It was a briefing by Matthew Cassetta, the Program and Exchange Officer for the USEU Public Affairs department, and Apar Sidhu, the head of the USEU Political-Military section, for a class of Swedish students from a school that has sent students to the embassy previously. The former explained the relationship between the three US embassies in Brussels, and pointed out the US Mission to the EU’s unique distinction of being the only American embassy to an organization that the US is not a member of, and the latter talked about the American view on issues concerning the European Union's Common Foreign and Security policy and how the USEU works with and towards the EU. The person who had invited initially talked about me possibly giving a speech on what an internship is like at the USEU, but since it was only my third day we decided against that.
Thursday and Friday were less eventful, and mainly consisted of me working on the EUR Early Alerts. On Thursday, we primarily focused on Egypt, dividing our coverage into four sections:
I also wrote a smaller section on Yemen, focusing on the fact that the president “sacrificed the idea of staying in office for life in exchange for not being kicked out immediately” (France's Les Echos), amidst more general speculation of a “domino effect” of protests and potentially revolutions in the Middle East/North Africa.
Friday also focused on Egypt and Yemen, but this time around was a special two-page edition of the Early Alert. I'm told the Media Hub rarely sends more than a page, but given everything happening in Egypt we wanted to leave officials in Washington with extra information to absorb over the weekend. Commentators in Europe for the first time on Friday described the situation in Egypt as “civil war,” with Spain's El Mundo headlining “[Vice President] Suleiman threatens protesters with an 'Iron Fist' to ‘avoid paralysis’.” Some in the European press were positive on American efforts in the crisis while other opinions were more mixed. Like Thursday, there was also a focus on the position of hte Egyptian military, and the question remains: whose side will the military take? We also briefly outlined attention in the European press to protests across the Arab world, such as those in Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, and Syria.
In addition to working on those reports, next week I will be attending three additional events. The first, on Monday, is a presentation at the USEU by Dr. Daniel Hamilton, the Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, titled “Europe 2020: Competitive or Complacent.” The second, on Wednesday, is a conference organized by the EU Commission for their interns. The conference, which starts in the evening a bit after quitting time at the internship, consists of a roundtable by the following officials on the key challenges for the European Union's foreign policy in the aftermath of the 2009 Lisbon Treaty.
- Reaction in the European press to what Spain's El Pais termed Mubarak's “brutal counterattack” against demonstrators.
- The implications of the situation in Egypt for the United States (Belgium’s Le Soir headlining “Developments in Egypt are a nightmare for U.S. Administration”).
- Speculation as to what will happen in Egypt after Mubarak leaves (the Italian Il Tempo warned “After Mubarak the risk is either chaos or sharia,” while the German Tagesthemen argued “The argument that Mubarak must stay because there is nobody there for the transition is nonsense expressed by political cowards”).
- And the general consensus across all of that European media we monitor that, as Spain's Cadena SER headlined, “Everything hinges on the Egyptian Army.”
I also wrote a smaller section on Yemen, focusing on the fact that the president “sacrificed the idea of staying in office for life in exchange for not being kicked out immediately” (France's Les Echos), amidst more general speculation of a “domino effect” of protests and potentially revolutions in the Middle East/North Africa.
Friday also focused on Egypt and Yemen, but this time around was a special two-page edition of the Early Alert. I'm told the Media Hub rarely sends more than a page, but given everything happening in Egypt we wanted to leave officials in Washington with extra information to absorb over the weekend. Commentators in Europe for the first time on Friday described the situation in Egypt as “civil war,” with Spain's El Mundo headlining “[Vice President] Suleiman threatens protesters with an 'Iron Fist' to ‘avoid paralysis’.” Some in the European press were positive on American efforts in the crisis while other opinions were more mixed. Like Thursday, there was also a focus on the position of hte Egyptian military, and the question remains: whose side will the military take? We also briefly outlined attention in the European press to protests across the Arab world, such as those in Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, and Syria.
In addition to working on those reports, next week I will be attending three additional events. The first, on Monday, is a presentation at the USEU by Dr. Daniel Hamilton, the Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, titled “Europe 2020: Competitive or Complacent.” The second, on Wednesday, is a conference organized by the EU Commission for their interns. The conference, which starts in the evening a bit after quitting time at the internship, consists of a roundtable by the following officials on the key challenges for the European Union's foreign policy in the aftermath of the 2009 Lisbon Treaty.
- Mr Michael Emerson, Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (Moderator)
- Mr Christopher Davis, Miniter-Counselor for Political Affairs
- Ms Paula Abreu Marques, European Commission, DG ENER, Head of Unit International Relations and Enlargement
- Mr Elmar Brok, Member of the European Parliament and rapporteur on the External Action Service
- Mr Álvaro de Vasconcelos, Director of the EU Institute for Security Studies
Perhaps more interesting than the presentation itself is that I will have an opportunity before and after the conference to meet some of the 60 to 80 EU interns who will also be there. Finally, on Friday I will be meeting one-on-one with Ambassador William Kennard, who heads the US Mission to the EU. In short, there’s a lot going on next week...
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