I spent a fair part of this afternoon in an urgent meeting with my counterpart in the Committee of the Regions, Gerhard Stahl, and our budgetary staff discussing the not so good news about our draft 2012 budgets and the better news about Croatia’s 2013 accession. Unofficially, we have been informed about the Council’s position with regard to our draft 2012 budgets. We expected cuts and these have indeed come but, curiously and inexplicably, the Council has behaved ‘asymetrically’ with regard to those parts of our budgets devoted to our Joint Services. If those cuts are not reinstated by the Parliament during the conciliation procedure expected in November, then both Committees will have to review their contributions. Not for the first time, we have experienced the frustrations of smaller institutions in the post-Lisbon Treaty budgetary world – a world in which we are no longer participants but simple spectators. Paradoxically, whilst we had to discuss cuts, we also had to discuss what we will ask of the budgetary authority in a supplementary budget that the European Commission is preparing in anticipation of Croatia’s accession in July 2013. Each Committee will welcome nine new members as of then but already observers will start attending in early 2013, which means that essential documents (our rules of procedure, for example) will have to be available in Croatian upstream of their arrival. That, in turn, means that we will have to start recruiting translators already in 2012. It’s something of a topsy-turvy world: simultaneously discussing cuts and increases to what will in effect be the same budget!

This morning, in a truly human gesture, our human resources directorate held an open morning with the object of explaining to colleagues who does what and why. We are a relatively small administration (smaller than most European Commission Directorates-General, for example) but, still, we are spread out over six buildings and the routine of our busy lives necessarily creates distances that initiatives like this morning’s do so much to close. And then, at eleven, an enormous and scrumptious chocolate cake was cut up and shared out among the guests, including a very happy Secretary General (I’ll have to atone for it this weekend, though). It was just a lovely occasion and proof, yet again, that our human resources are truly human.

I can’t help but post another example of just how lean an operation the European Economic and Social Committee manages. The statistics on our visitors’ service just happened to run across my desk this morning. Hosting visits from interested people and groups is an important part of the standard democratic offer of EU institutions but is perhaps particularly important for representative institutions such as the European Parliament and the consultative bodies. In the Council, nine officials help the institution host about 16,000 visitors a year. In the European Commission, twenty-two officials help it host about 50,000 visitors. In the European Parliament, fifty-five officials help it host some 220,000 visitors (in Brussels). In the European Economic and Social Committee just one official – that’s right, one again – helps it host some 11,000 visitors a year and with no separate dedicated budget either. The official in question, a Finnish lady, is to my mind one of the many superstars of our administration. And she is helped by a phalanx of volunteers – our members and our staff – who happily give up time to talk about our institution and its work and the work of the European Union more generally. Doubtless, the EESC will tighten its belt still further, but actually it’s already pretty tight!

This evening, at dusk, the dog took us for a walk across agricultural land near Leuven. We walked past field after field of potato plants. They are in blossom at the moment, some producing white flowers, some a sort of pale mauve colour. This is bintje country and what is currently under the ground will be in Belgian bellies in one way or another in the autumn. The lateness of the hour and the failing light meant that, notwithstanding the dog’s presence, there was a lot of wildlife about. We saw over twenty hares. In daylight they would be gone like a flash but in the twilight they seemed happy to lope along, sometimes quite near to us. It could also be a form of animal arrogance; a way of letting the dog know that they’re  confident he’ll never catch them. Certainly the dog seemed happy at times to pretend that he wasn’t seeing them and therefore didn’t need to give chase!

In last week’s edition of European Voice, John Wyles argued (here) with characteristic cogency that the current crisis could and should be turned to good effect, in particular by building on the current responses to the crisis to take the European project one step further towards true economic government. Elsewhere, another friend, Jon Worth, has penned two posts on his blog, one berating superficial journalism on the question of the EU’s future but the other nevertheless bemoaning the current grey mood in ‘Brussels’. I have always argued that it is wrong to aspire towards popularity. ‘Brussels’ will probably never be popular, just as ‘Washington’ and ‘Paris’ are not popular. On the other hand, ‘Brussels’ can and should aspire towards respect, and so the way the Union handles itself in these challenging times is doubly important. I passionately believe that the euro was a brilliant technical achievement (I had the privilege of seeing its creation up close) as well as a fundamental political step. I am convinced that with the same technical brilliance and political determination the EU will come through this crisis the stronger and the wiser. In doing so, it may remain unpopular, but it will have earned still greater respect.

With apologies to Hugo of New York (he likes that), I am illustrating the Enlarged Presidency again with Howard Taft and will continue to do so until I receive a better suggestion. On the substance, the EESC’s Enlarged Presidency met this morning to discuss a rich political agenda, including budgetary issues and working methods. The Enlarged Presidency consists of the President, the two Vice-Presidents and the three Group Presidents and its serves as a preparatory body for the Committee’s main decision-making body, the Bureau. The atmosphere was excellent and the meeting very constructive. There are times when I come out of meetings thinking better progress could have been made. Today, on a series of potentially thorny issues, much progress was made and the EESC’s Secretary General was a happy bunny.

This evening we at last got around to watching The Social Network. This is another entertainment loosely based on a real life story and it is very well done. The plot plays cleverly on a series of ironies, not the least of them being the fact that the social network is created by an almost autistic code-writing genius and that on his way to fabulous success and riches the Mark Zuckerberg of the film loses virtually all of his friends. Jesse Eisenberg plays the Zuckerberg role brilliantly. As one of Zuckerberg’s friends, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz, commented when the film came out,  ‘At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is.’ Where the real Zuckerberg objected was in the portrayal of his basic motivation. This did not grow out of his inability to woo the opposite sex (as the film would have us believe) but his pleasure in building things. In the film he parties. In real life, he wrote code. But there is a fundamental authenticity about the portrayal nevertheless. We need our geniuses and they inevitably come with rough edges.

This afternoon, our President, Staffan Nilsson, chaired the 20th meeting of the EESC’s Liaison Group with European civil society organisations and networks. A key point on the agenda was a discussion with Libor Roucek, Vice-President of the European Parliament, on the European Parliament’s commitment and contribution to the establishment of an effective civil dialogue between EU institutions and civil society (in line with the provisions of Article 11 of the Lisbon Treaty). It was therefore also a moment to take stock of the very fruitful and positive cooperation that took place between the EP and the EESC on the occasion of the 27-28 January Citizens’ Agora on the theme of ‘Crisis and Poverty.’ It was an occasion, as Libor Roucek acknowledged, where the EESC demonstrated very effectively the role it can play as an important flanking partner to the European Parliament.

It was so generally cold, grey and gloomy yesterday that I made a stoemp to cheer us (well, me) up. I would like immediately to apologise to my Facebook friend, Peter. About a month ago there was an exchange on my page, with me maintaining that a true stoemp was necessarily made with leeks. Not so, he argued, and he was right. Basically, you can make a stoemp with most vegetables (together with potatoes, of course). For those not conversant with the dish, stoemp is a pinnacle of Belgian cuisine. The reason I thought it had to be leeks was because I used our old, battered version of Le Petit Comme Chez Soi, which has the leeks version and brussels sprouts only as a variant. The recipe is delicious. The leeks are first sweated in butter then stewed in well-salted chicken stock and cream. The potatoes are par-boiled and bruised (as opposed to boiled and mashed) and the two are mixed. Where does the climate change come in? Well, stoemp (a winter dish, you will not be surprised to learn) is even better re-heated, so I ate the rest of it today and today, in extraordinary contrast to yesterday, is a roasting hot day. I nevertheless had to atone for my sins and did this by running some ten kilometres under a blazing sun. Frankly, it was worth it.