Minor European Union Policy

IBMS students who are participating in a double degree program of the Avans Hogeschool and who are leaving in the second semester of the third year are obliged to follow the minor of European Union Policy. Honestly I don’t know why this is obliged. Maybe it is because those that are leaving the second semester are mostly those students that go to the USA, so the school wants to make sure those students will not forget their roots.

Frankly I was not very interested in the minor at all, but I wanted to go to the States very badly so I had to participate anyway. The reason that I was not very interested in the topic is because I’m a bit of a Euro-skeptic. Now that I have finished the block I did not change my opinion about the EU, but I am happy I followed this minor though. It is never a bad thing to study something you might not like to see if there are good reasons to dislike it. Maybe my arguments were just prejudices.

The minor covers a lot of topics that are relevant for doing business on the European market.
It starts with a clear explanation of how the European politics work and where it came from.
It goes back all the way to the signing of the first Treaty in Paris which founded the ECSC. After that it will take you step by step through recent history until what the situation is like today and what it could become in the future. Furthermore the minor covers a big deal of European business law which is important since it is supranational which means that it is above national law. A lot of rulings and landmark rulings are explained. Besides all this also the internal market of the EU plays a big role. It explains how the member states are dependent on each other by business relations and how struggling economies of different member states can be overcome by healthy competition.

To make the theory a bit more tangible also a trip to Brussels was arranged. After our arrival we first got some presentations. After that we got to take a look in the European Parliament which was very interesting. After a long break in the city centre we had some presentations from people that worked for the European Commission which was also very interesting.

In the end I have to say it was an interesting minor. When starting this minor I honestly had no idea what was going on in Brussels, but now I do. Or at least I’m supposed to. I still think it is a little bit odd that third year college students have to learn all this, starting from the very beginning just to get to know how the EU government operates. Most of us do know how our national government operates, so why don’t we know anything about the EU? I guess this is pretty important as well and it certainly concerns our daily life until a certain degree.