Brussels, I Love You But You Make Me Cry

Minister Pascal Smet of Brussels recently learnt a lesson when, in an interview with the European news site Politico, he compared Brussels with a ‘whore’. Anyone can gripe about Brussels – and a great deal of it goes on – but do not touch the residents’ love for their city. That means a return to ‘one for all’. Of course the minister’s comparison was entirely misplaced, but the core of his argument holds. Brussels is a city which simultaneously attracts and repulses. Brussels, I love you but you make me cry.