Tuesday, October 26, 2010
12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Location: 1744 R Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
Featuring
Caroline Van Wynsberghe
Researcher & Lecturer
Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium)
Lunch will be served.
Please contact Julie Stern at jstern@gmfus.org or +1 202 683 2645 to RSVP.
Like Washington, D.C., beyond the borders of Brussels, Belgium, the city’s name is used primarily as shorthand for the federal government that resides there. Brussels is one of the capitals of the European Union – home to both the European Commission and the European Parliament – and is also, like Washington, a separate jurisdiction within the Belgian federal system. The structure of Brussels’ economy and local government leads to challenges that will sound familiar to Washingtonians – high per capita GDP combined with high unemployment; an inability to tax workers who commute from suburbs in another jurisdiction; a high proportion of European government workers whose taxes go directly to the European government instead of into local coffers (and who don’t vote in municipal elections); and a short history of self governance periodically troubled by revenue shortfalls and difficulty streamlining operations both within the city and with regional partners.
In support of her doctoral research, and in partnership with the e-journal for academic research Brussels Studies and the Brussels Region, GMF is hosting fellow Caroline Van Wynsberghe, an expert on Brussels’ governance structure and politics who has spent the past month in Washington, DC interviewing key officials for a comparative study. At this lunch event, Caroline will highlight some of the key similarities and differences between Washington and Brussels, share insights from her month of research in Washington, and discuss plans to establish a sustained exchange between the two metropolitan regions.
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