European Commission cuts AC for staff but not for commissioners

Berlaymont switches off AC on lower floors, not upper ones: Europe's elite stays cool

Last Tuesday, the 3,000 employees of the European Commission's Berlaymont building received a terse message: "BERL — URGENT — Due to extreme weather conditions, the cooling system on floors 1 to 7 is being shut down for the rest of the day". The notice only affected the lower floors. On the upper floors, where President Ursula von der Leyen (floor 13) and her 26 commissioners (floors 8 to 13) work, the air conditioning kept running without interruption. The decision has reignited the debate over double standards in the European institutions.

The facts: one message, two temperatures

The Berlaymont building, the Commission's headquarters, has 13 floors and houses around 3,000 officials. According to information leaked to Politico, the climate control system could not keep up with demand during the heatwave, so the supply was cut off to the lower floors. The move infuriated workers at other offices that already lack air conditioning, such as those at DG AGRI (Agriculture), who have been enduring high temperatures without cooling for days. The official explanation, based on technical limitations, convinces no one.

Double standards: some swelter, others stay cool

The image is hard to swallow: while rank-and-file employees sweat at their desks, the Commission's top brass keep working at a comfortable temperature. One participant in the debate summed it up with irony: "The little people get cooked at work. The commissioners get to cool off in their palace". The perception of hypocrisy is especially acute coming from an institution that pushes restrictive climate policies for citizens and businesses. As another participant put it, "do as I say, not as I do".

The fact that President von der Leyen occupies floor 13, the last to be spared from the shutdown, adds an extra layer of symbolism. The numerical coincidence has not gone unnoticed and has been the subject of sarcastic remarks.

Thermodynamics as a cover story

Part of the discussion has focused on whether air conditioning heats up the street. Some argue that the system expels outside the heat extracted from the interior plus the energy consumed, worsening the urban heat island effect. Others, however, point out that the contribution is marginal compared to direct solar radiation. What matters here is not the physics, but the choice of who suffers the consequences of a measure that, in theory, pursues energy efficiency. Because if the problem is ambient heat, it makes no sense that the upper floors are exempt.

Closing: the detail that stings

The Commission justified the decision by "extreme weather conditions". The paradox is that those same extreme conditions were what forced the system to be switched off... but only for those downstairs. In a 13-floor building, the temperature in the commissioners' offices is the same as in the administrative staff's. The difference is who makes the decisions. And who bears them.