Posted on 06/26/2026 10:16:03 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The European Commission’s headquarters was forced to shut down its air-conditioning system on Friday due to the heat wave.
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.
Belgium and much of Europe have been sweltering for the past week, with record-breaking temperatures.
The Commission issued guidance for its staff earlier this week, which included avoiding going outside at the hottest times of day, drinking water regularly and starting work earlier.
But the advice angered some Commission staff who work in buildings without air-conditioning, including DG AGRI, according to internal communications seen by POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook.
“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.
The heat wave has prompted a renewed discussion about the lack of air-conditioning systems in homes and offices across much of Europe. Only about one-fifth of households on the continent have AC. In Belgium, one-fifth of all trains are without AC, prompting the national rail company to cancel many peak-hour services.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.eu ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Mass euthanasia is the climate change agenda anyway.
Don’t they have it backwards? You turn AC ON during a heat wave. You don’t need it when it is cool.
No problem! Once a cold-snap occurs, and icicles start forming on the windows, they will be allowed to turn their air-conditioning back on!
Regards,
Let’s see. Solar panels work best in the sum so shouldn’t it keep up with the need to power the AC?
Well, cool air goes sinks, so floors one through seven will get whatever is left over. Kind of like the staff in the French King’s Palace being allowed to take the unused portions of the many candles in use.
🥵
What shithole country has to turn off the AC when it gets hot?
How many soccer pitches is 25.7 degrees?
🤣👍👏
Shutting down the air conditioning due to a heatwave?
What’s like withdrawing food due to a famine or cutting off the water due to a drought.
All this carping about extreme heat is stupid. These same people who claim that Climate Change is making it too hot, also say that Climate Change is causing the Gulf Stream current and the AMOC to weaken.
Well if the Gulf Stream gets weak enough, because the larger AMOC would do the same, do you know what happens to western Europe?
Europe freezes. Solid. Growing season shortens, summers are much colder, and winters are like Siberia.
And... the good news: No more heat wave, yay. See, easy peasy.
Shutting down AC to the worker floors. Keeping it for the Bosses’ floors.
Let them eat cake.
That is why the math for decentralized solar works for me in Alabama. The rainy or thick cloudy days I don’t get much solar power are almost always mild temperature days and, thus, I don’t have to use a lot of power running my HVAC. This is both in the summer and the winter. But the really hot days I run the AC a lot are almost always sunny days. Likewise the really cold winter days (cold to us in Alabama) are also usually sunny days.
The end result is that, though the solar and battery system and other energy improvements I did to the house aren’t enough to allow me to go off grid, I wind up winning on the averages. The days I consume the most power are the days I don’t need the grid because I have more than enough solar power. In other words, the days I win the battle are the days I most need to win to save money in the long run. The days I lose the battle and wind up pulling from the grid are the small battles that wouldn’t save me much money anyway.
Can we assume that the top brass’ offices are on the floors still being cooled?
One of those great “I love America” videos made by foreign World Cup fans was a rant against Celsius and newfound support for Fahrenheit.
He said, basically, “Every argument for Celsius sounds like it was written by an engineer - zero means water turns to ice and 100 means water boils. The problem is, I’m not water. I’m people. I don’t wake up wondering how a puddle feels today.”
As for euthanasia being the agenda here, I posted an article on the European mindset of the pros and cons of AC. They are like that of a death cult. Anyone who’s letting grandma die of heat to save the planet is a walking DSM-5 situation.
What’s being reported, FWIW, on social media...
That the AC was turned off only after it went public that initially the AC had been left on for the higher ups while the underlings boiled.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.