In Brussels: Teaching policy-making in the EU

Explaining to young students what the European Union (EU) is and how it works can be challenging. Yet, the diffusion and success of “EU studies” push instructors to develop innovative methods to make the complex EU decision-making accessible to students. Role-playing may be helpful and the EU provides ample opportunities of simulating various levels of policy-making. This paper presents a format for a semester-long, role-playing simulation in which students act as EU Commission’s staff employees.