Brussels, Belgium's capital, serves as the headquarters for which two major international organisations?

The correct answer is that Brussels serves as the headquarters for both the European Union and NATO. Brussels is often informally called the 'capital of Europe' because it hosts the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and is also a meeting seat of the European Parliament, even though the Parliament's official plenary sessions are held in Strasbourg. This dual hosting arrangement makes Brussels unique among European capitals and is a frequently tested geography fact. The distractor 'The United Nations and NATO' is incorrect because the United Nations does not have its European seat in Brussels; the UN's major European offices are located in Geneva and, for some agencies, Vienna. 'The European Union and the WHO' is incorrect because the World Health Organization is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, not Brussels. 'NATO and the WTO' is wrong because the World Trade Organization is also based in Geneva, not Brussels. A common exam confusion arises because candidates conflate Geneva and Brussels as both being 'international organisation hubs' in Europe, when in fact they host entirely different sets of institutions — Geneva specialises in United Nations agencies and trade or health bodies, while Brussels specialises in European Union governance and NATO's political-military apparatus. The revision takeaway: remember Brussels for EU plus NATO headquarters, and Geneva for UN-affiliated bodies such as WHO and WTO — keeping this city-organisation pairing straight resolves most questions of this type in a single step.