Regional offices in Brussels represent one or more regions of a particular country. These offices perform lobbying, networking, promotion and support in favor of their region/s. These offices also support companies , politicians, academics and business when they are visiting Brussels for meetings. Usually they employ personnel from the country they are representing but other nationalities are employed if their language skills are good. Since EU funding and grants for such offices has increased so has the number of cities and regions being represented.
There are various structures to regional offices :
Single regional/local authority
Consortia of regional/local bodies
The association office
The cross-border regional office
The “umbrella” style organization
The “partnership” office
You could be trying to apply for jobs for any of the above structures. You have to recognize the kind of regional office you are sending your CV to and prepare it accordingly. Cross-Border Regional offices are getting more popular in Brussels, this means that there are less people working for regional offices (economies of scale).
What is the major role of Regional offices in Brussels
regional development
SME development and innovation
labour market
training and retraining
information technologies and e-initiatives
integration to the labour market
gender equality and social insertion
participation in project work
networking, seminars and conferences
establishing contact between actors in the County and possible partners
general promotion activities
The above are some general activities undertaken by regional activities. This can give you a clear idea of what kind of personnel regional offices in Brussels are looking for. If you have expertise in any of the above taks, if your dissertation was about the above tasks make sure you highllight this fact in your covering letter.
Although the EU institutions and agencies are spread all over the European union territories, Brussels is home to most of them. Thus all the regional offices are based in Brussels.
