United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC)
Rue de la Loi 155, 7th Floor
1040 Brussels, Belgium
Tel.: +32 2 788 8484
Fax: +32 2 788 8485
E-mail: info@unric.org
Website: www.unric.org
The United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) opened in Brussels on 1 January 2004. The Regional Centre replaces nine UN Information Centres based in Europe (Athens, Bonn, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome), which closed on 31 December 2003, following a decision by the UN General Assembly at its 58th session.
UNRIC services Western Europe and provides information and documentation to the countries of the region. Its information outreach activities extend to all segments of society and joint projects and events are organized with key partners, including governments, the media, NGOs, educational institutions and local authorities.
UNRIC also disseminates information materials, major UN reports and documents, press kits, posters, fact sheets and brochures.
A Reference Library, open to the public, maintains a collection of UN documents and publications in English, French and Spanish, as well as information materials available in other West European languages. UNRIC regularly responds to all inquiries by telephone, e-mail and postal mail.
A common UNRIC website is operational in 13 languages of the region: Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Nederlands (Dutch/Flemish), Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. Each language site gives information about the most important current UN-related events, activities and observances, as well as UNRIC and UN family programmes in the region.
The sites in non-official UN languages (all except English, French and Spanish that have links to the UN headquarters website) also present basic information on the UN organization, including its structure, goals, main documents, affiliated agencies, employment opportunities and main areas of work.
Countries Served
Since 1 January 2004, the new United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) in Brussels provides information services to the following Western European countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Holy See, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.
UNRIC also provides liaison with institutions of the European Union in the field of information.