Global Elitism at Work: Amid Heatwave, European Commission Shuts Off AC – But Only For Lower-Level Workers
The European Commission is running a literal sweatshop at its Brussels facility — just not for the Important People™.
In a situation that couldn’t be a more perfect illustration of the contempt global elites have for the rest of us if it had been written as satire, the headquarters of the European Union’s executive cabinet was forced to shut down the air conditioning of its Belgian-based headquarters building as the city baked from a Europe-wide heatwave.
However, it only shut down some of the building’s climate control. And, lo and behold, it seems not to have been done at random.
From Politico on Friday:
Staff working at the Berlaymont building received a text at midday, reading: “BERL — URGENT — Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day.”
The 13-story building is home to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, her 26 commissioners and about 3,000 staff. Von der Leyen works on the 13th floor, and most of her commissioners’ offices are housed on floors eight or above. …
“It’s like feudalism,” a Commission official working on a lower level of the Berlaymont, granted anonymity to speak freely, told POLITICO on Friday, referring to the fact that upper floors housing commissioners got to keep their AC on. A second official agreed it was a “disgrace.”
A third staffer working on the 8th floor told POLITICO on Friday that even with working AC, the temperature inside was still 25.7 degrees.
As a side note, screenwriters for the James Bond franchise really missed the boat by not naming a fictional villain named Ursula von der Leyen before a real one popped up.
The shutoff of AC below the eighth floor underscores a wider debate over air conditioning in Europe, which has been frowned upon as a contributor to climate change despite the fact that the lack of it on the continent — partially because governments there discourage it — contributes to tens of thousands of deaths from heat-related causes in Europe each year.
And yet, European functionaries seem to be telling the proles the same thing, year after year: Swelter and die so that we won’t raise the temperature any more by some of those nasty carbon emissions.
This time, it seems, people aren’t listening, with this viral footage from France — showing people scrambling to get their hands on air conditioners and fans like it was Black Friday — summing up the general mood among the populace: