I haven’t travelled so much lately. Unfortunately, my Australia trip was cancelled because of the volcano. And since quite a few of my counterparts are attending various conferences all over the world, we have not received many visitors in April and May. I was only travelling to Brussels to attend a 2-day conference about the future of European integration. The conference was organized in the buildings of the European parliament in Brussels. These buildings are a community in itself I think. Lots of people walk in and out, TV cameras everywhere, people are being interviewed and to enter the buildings, there is an airport like security to prevent, yes what to prevent actually? The parliament does not do much harm, although I learned that due to the Lisbon agreement the parliament has gained much more power than before. I attended the conference because of scientific interest and having once received a grant from the European Union, I think that you must attend such conferences if the topic is of interest. It was an interesting event indeed and it became very clear that the future of Europe depends critically on managing diversity I would say. It starts with the language. For a relative outsider in European politics, it remains strange and inefficient to see 27 translator cabins filled with about 54 translators (the Dutch were among the few that had 3 translators occupied) during the sessions. And as is common on these conferences, everybody speaks English and the French speak French. I also wondered whether all translators have an audience. At one moment I was the only Dutch in the audience and I did not use the translation headset so I was wondering for whom the Dutch translator was doing his translation work. Another funny moment was when the chair said that we had to close a session because the translators were not allowed to work longer and we had used all the available time. On the other hand, having people from Spain, France, Germany, Poland and Greece (to just give an at random selection of the participants) discussing defense policies, economic policies and political governance issues is promising for the future of an integrated, peaceful Europe.