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The only degrees EU officials used to care about were those handed out by the College of Europe. Now it’s degrees Celsius.
Amid soaring energy prices sparked by Russia’s war on Ukraine, the EU has capped the temperatures of its institutional buildings in Brussels at 19 degrees.
That’s causing ructions inside the institutions as sedentary officials who are closely monitoring their thermostats argue on the Commission’s internal messaging system about whether the sacrifice is really worth it.
“It is freezing,” said one shivering EU official working in the Berlaymont building, the European Commission’s headquarters. “Almost everyone complains. We understand the energy crises but it is quite uncomfortable to work in those conditions.”
Those complaining have faced a frosty response from their colleagues. “How dare they complain when people in Kyiv don’t have electricity?” said a second official working in the same building.
Other EU staffers dotted around Brussels also put it bluntly. “The ones who are reporting it’s freezing are weak — the temperature is fine,” a DG CONNECT official said.
Across the town in the buildings of directorates-general — essentially EU ministries — indoor temperatures are dropping and eurocrats are pulling on warm clothes, from scarves to Emmanuel Macron-style turtlenecks.
In DG REGIO, which covers regional and urban policy, workers have measured temperatures dropping to a chilly 16 degrees and are wearing extra scarves and gilets. At the DG for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid, where it can be below 19 degrees, staff have started donning EU-branded sweaters intended for foreign missions, an official said. It’s also got colder in DG GROW, DG HOME and DG MOVE, according to officials who work there.
It’s cool to be cool
But some are taking pride in braving the cold, seeing it as an act of solidarity with EU citizens facing eye-popping energy bills triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Colder is better for me,” said Poland’s EU Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski in an interview on the 10th floor of the Berlaymont where POLITICO judged that it didn’t feel particularly chilly.
It’s “noticeably colder than last year and rightfully so,” said a third EU official in the Berlaymont. “We’re all doing our little bits to help reduce energy consumption and I’m kind of proud of that,” they said.
Others laughed it off. Jan-Tjibbe Steeman, an official at the DG for research and innovation, joked on Twitter that officials are making ice castles during lunch breaks, before adding that: “It’s fine and for a good cause.”
The second Berlaymont-based official said: “It’s all part of our contribution to support Ukraine and if we say it publicly then we also need to do it personally and privately.”
But these energy-saving measures could have unintended consequences. According to the first official in the Berlaymont, “colleagues are starting not to come to the office or considering bringing electrical heaters which obviously will do nothing in terms of energy savings.”
The DG MOVE official said most of the frustration stems from the way the temperature drop is being justified. “There’s a lot of communication which assumes that people working from home more equals emission reductions by the Commission (which is dubious to say the least),” they said.
Unfortunately for the frost-bitten bureaucrats, who must come into the office at least twice a week, the Commission has banned portable electric heaters.
‘Solidarity sweaters’
Some feel that they’ve got the short straw, especially compared to the Berlaymont — where the most senior EU officials working for commissioners are based.
“[DG] AGRI is such an old building that we can’t change the temperature anyway,” said one official. They added: “I had a meeting in the Berlaymont and the thermostat in the meeting room showed 23.6 [degrees Celsius].”
“Sometimes at the end of the day you’re cold because you’ve been standing still,” explained a staffer at DG INTPA, the directorate-general for international development. “But then I walk around the office to warm up.”
The measures are part of efforts by the European Commission to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions from its buildings in Brussels and Luxembourg by 60 percent this decade compared to 2005 levels.
“Since mid-2021 and mid-2022, the heating temperature was gradually reduced by -2C (19C instead of 21C) in winter and the cooling temperature by +2C (25C instead of 23C) in summer in offices,” a Commission spokesperson wrote in an email.
The Commission isn’t the only part of the EU quarter where teeth are chattering. The office floor of European Council President Charles Michel was a grim 17 degrees at times last week, while diplomats are boasting about donning “solidarity sweaters” in the Justus Lipsius building, HQ of the Council of the EU.
Louise Guillot, Elena Giordano, Ali Walker and Jakob Hanke Vela contributed reporting.
Source: Politico
