Anyone who has lived in Brussels knows how isolated the European neighborhood is from the rest of the city. First, it is geographically isolated as it settled on an old Brussels neighborhood that was completely destroyed in order to implant the majestic EU institutions. Second it's economically isolated and self-sufficient with it's own food stores, restaurants, hotels, bars and clubs twice as expensive as they are in the rest of the city. The affluence of wealthy civil servants has also a big impact on the estate prices reinforcing the isolationnism of the EU in Brussels. Third, it is mentally isolated. The civil servants are a mixture of some of the most educated europeans used to high profile conferences and fancy receptions, a thousand miles away from European realities. Most of them don't know anything about Brussels and Belgium, imagine about other countries!
The struggle for power is more than in any other place an issue in Brussels DC. But on the other hand everybody knows that further integration means more power for the high civil servants, for the Commissionners, for the national Ministers, for the Court of Justice,... and more influence from private interests. This is the Europe wanted by the eurocrats, a very exciting, influencing and challenging Europe happening in Brussels and involving less than 0,023% of the Europeans.
