Broken Car Window - CC / Flickr

A mother of three has been shot in Uccle and EUObserver is jumping up and down reporting on the crime rates in various Brussels communes. You can just hear the typical EU expat having a whinge at Place Lux complaining about things, about how unsafe Brussels streets are… and then doing absolutely f**k all about it.

For let’s get this clear: there is a nagging amount of crime in Brussels – shootings like the one in the article are very rare, but cars being broken into and muggings are all too common. I can’t work out how to compare the Brussels and London stats however.

But what should happen? Officials from the European Parliament speaking to the local police about the issue (as reported in the article) is going to solve absolutely nothing. The area around the institutions is a dead wasteland in the evenings and on weekends and some areas – especially on rue Joseph II and close to the European Parliament off rue Wiertz – are very poorly lit. Dealing with muggings and car theft is in part to do with the police, and the je m’en foutisme of the Belgian public services undoubtedly does not help, but it’s also to do with lighting, the atmosphere on the streets, social inclusion… even something as simple as clear and wide pavements can help.

There are other problems in Belgium of a similar nature – homelessness for example – that the Belgian state just cannot solve, because they require a level of social engagement, and all parts of the public service to work together, that the Belgian state just cannot accomplish. But the EU institutions dominate a whole quarter of Brussels, and most of the people working in those institutions should be capable of political thinking, organising and planning and – essentially – taking some of the matters into the institutions hands to do something about the area around the institutions and the feeling of a lack of security on the streets.

But of course having a whinge is a lot easier…

(Oh and while we’re at it: you’re much more likely to die on the roads of Brussels by being run over by a kamikaze driver not respecting the rules than you are to be shot dead. But of course expats driving around in their large Mercedes don’t think that way.)

Twitpic from @vertbrussels

Brussels on a bicycle is the fastest way to get around, but it’s often like some sort of assault course. Here’s an example.

I set off from home at 1950 last night, heading from St Gilles to a friend’s place in St Josse, going via Flagey, rue Gray, chaussée d’Etterbeek. Along the way I counted:

• 10 cars double parked
• 3 cars that were not road-worthy due to problems with their lights
• 2 drivers not using indicators when turning at junctions
• 1 driver jumping red lights

Why, oh why, don’t Brussels police do something about this? Surely they could earn plenty of cash by fining people? These sorts of things are what makes cycling hell. Then this morning someone tweeted the picture shown above, and all becomes clear.

In both cases my mind starts to work in the same way… what if this were a political campaign online? Where would I look? Where – in short – are the obsessives? The people that care deeply about the matter in question. When it comes to espresso and, to a lesser extent, diving, I count as an obsessive, and my blog posts about my Gaggia Classic and diving Lake Malawi are well read and highly ranked in Google.

So what are the basics of good online promotion for these 2 small enterprises, completely different in sector and location?

1. Get a good, simple (Wordpress) website, designed with Google in mind
2. Keep the site up to date regularly with details of events, new coffees, pictures of the latest fish spotted etc. – provide something for the obsessives.
3. Make use of Facebook and Twitter to interact with users, and give some special offers to fans and/or followers via this medium – perhaps also find some way to give some rewards to regulars this way. Refer a friend?
4. Find other local enterprises to team up with, places with the right demography – The Hub Brussels is just down the road from Blomqvist’s and they are active on Twitter and have the right, young audience
5. Make sure kind things are written about you in as many languages as possible – something like this in French would be handy in English for Blomqvist’s for example

The cost of all of that? Hosting with One.com is €1,25 a month, Wordpress is free to download, and Facebook and Twitter are also free to use. A few free coffees or some discounted rooms in Dahab for the people that do the promotion and you’re already on your way…

Opel Astra - CC / Flickr

A friend from the Belgian SP.A said to me yesterday that she was going to a protest outside the Opel plant (that’s closing) in Antwerp this weekend, and did I want to join the protest in solidarity with the workers. No was my immediate answer – I’m glad it’s closing! She looked at my with a confused expression on her face.

Mass redundancies are never pleasant or comfortable, and my sympathies are with the workers that will lose their jobs, yet overall Europe produces too many cars, and the car sector in Belgium is just too much for a country of this size. Volvo has its largest factory outside Sweden in Gent, Ford has a large plant in Genk and Volkswagen/Audi has a plant at Forest.

All of this contributes to a ludicrously pro-car culture – in Brussels the car rules, the roads morning and evening are chock full of businessmen in their Mercedes and BMWs stuck in endless lines on rue de la Loi and rue Beliard. More than 50% of the new cars registered each year are company cars – firms get big tax breaks by giving their employees a vehicle. A friend in Brussels who had worked for a couple of years asked for a pay rise and was told this was not possible, but would she like a car? So a car she got.

So while my sympathies are with the workers of Opel Antwerp I hope the closure of the plant will make a small step towards Belgian politics being less addicted to the car.

I like new years. It’s a time to look forward. The days even start to get longer in January, and winter sports are always fun. But I digress. 2010 is going to be a year of some major changes for me, and for this blog too.

Essentially it’s all summed up by the image above.

I have a decision to make on how much time to spend in London (best business), Berlin (best quality of life) and Brussels (compromise between the two). Beyond that how much time do I spend on the professional training aspect of my work, explaining to people how the EU works and how to lobby it, versus the website design and the development of techPolitics LLP?

For sure I cannot keep on doing all I have been doing; I’ll go crazy if I do. But what has to give?

I also need to spend more time in the same place meaning ideally at least 7 uninterrupted days a month in Brussels if I can. I also want to improve my diving and skate an inline skate marathon in 1 hour 20 sometime over the next 12 months. There’s also the small matter of a UK general election and what campaigning role I can manage to play.

On the blog front I need to better divide up the topics that interest me – I already have Euroblog and Sportblog, but a division between politics and technology is also in order. I also should spend some more time on some more considered pieces for Left Foot Forward, Social Europe Journal and others. And all of that will necessitate some changes to this blog over the next 12 months, although it’s not top of my to-do list just yet.

Plus who knows what might await in 2010… 2009 started with atheist buses on the streets of London, and ended with a campaign for a Gender Balanced Commission. In short 2010 obliges me to make some choices but there will be plenty of fun things too, and as ever I’ll do my best to cover most of it on the blog here.

Photo credits: Brussels CC / Flickr, London CC / Flickr, Berlin CC / Flickr, EU flag CC / Flickr, Macbook keyboard CC / Flickr

Brussels Houses - CC / Flickr

So ideally I need to delegate work… but to whom, and how?

I’m working with Jan Seifert to setup techPolitics and that has taken some weight off my shoulders. But I would ideally need to find at least a few others with whom I could work – a freelance EU politics trainer, and some people that could do web projects. Not specifically programmers, but people who understand the internet and are sharp and bright. Importantly I do not want to just tell people what to do. I want to work with proactive people who will take responsibility themselves, be willing to build something, a kind of common endeavour.

I fear that the Brussels EU bubble is not really the place to find such people. Everyone is too concerned about the insecurity of being away from their home country. Getting a job in an institution with a solid income and pension seems to be the goal for far too many. It’s a golden cage in my view. The Belgian context does not help – becoming a freelancer in Belgium is complex – but those practical matters can be overcome. There is an enormous amount of Web 2.0 work around the EU institutions to do. Where are the people with whom to do it?

I feel very much like some odd risk taker in an extremely risk averse environment at the moment.

So what about the internet? The BBC has been at the forefront of online broadcasting with many of its radio channels available online all the time, and TV programmes available on iPlayer. Yet this has also meant a blanket ban on some broadcasts and services outside the UK. Any football commentary on Radio 5 is UK only and on Saturday Live on Radio 4 this morning they had the temerity to read out a reader’s letter complaining that Saturday Live podcasts were not available to users outside the UK. Well, the presenter said with a chuckle, that’s because you don’t pay the license fee!

Hold on a minute. People outside the UK do not pay the fee, but we also do not have the opportunity to do so. There is a crude distinction: if you’re in the UK you get all BBC programmes because you pay the license fee. If you’re outside the UK you must be someone the BBC can patronise with lousy rubbish, leftovers, like BBC World News or remnants of the empire like BBC World Service. I live in Belgium most of the time, 1 hour 51 minutes from London by train – so closer to BBC television centre than half of the UK. I want all the BBC services a British resident should be able to get, and if there were a way to pay for that then I would be willing to do so – I’m one of the people that like the BBC. But there is no way.

There are ways around some of the restrictions – using Foxyproxy to make iPlayer think you live in the UK (video of how to do it here), and having a UK iTunes account so as to access podcasts that way. But this is breaking the rules to get what you want because the BBC seems to treat everyone beyond the British Isles differently. It’s frustrating.

Belgacon

I’ve moved in Brussels – from St Josse to St Gilles – and in typical Belgian style the cable TV operator is different in St Gilles. Seems the Belgian notion of competition is to divide up the communes between different suppliers rather than allow suppliers to compete on the same network…

I was previously with Numericable and annoyingly VOO in St Gilles is too slow for what I need. So I had to go for Belgacom ADSL for internet instead, and I am already regretting it. I placed my order online on Tuesday last week and they promised a delivery of the equipment today. Nothing. So I called them.

Belgacom: “But sir, your account has not been opened?”
Me: “Sorry I don’t understand. I have made the order.”
Belgacom: “Yes, but the account has not been opened.”
Me (frustrated): “What does that mean? Is there something I need to do?”
Belgacom: “No, it’s that your account has not been opened.”
Me: “But my modem was supposed to be delivered today. And I urgently need the internet connection.”
Belgacom: “I’ll see what I can do.”

The woman then typed away on the other end of the phone, told me the modem would be delivered Wednesday and that the line would be opened Friday, 4 days later than I had previously been told. No apology, no explanation. And if I had not called to push the matter I wonder when anything would have been fixed! Let’s hope that the net connection works OK and that Belgacom doesn’t turn into Belgacon.