Archive for category Brussels life

Singalonga with the eurocrats

Posted by Bruno Waterfield in Brussels life, Economic crisis on February 20, 2009

As the rest of us feel the cold winds of the worst economic crisis in living memory, the cosy, bubble-wrapped existence of the eurocrat continues blissfully unaltered.

The EU is not , as far I know, planning any redundancies or wage freezes, so life trundles on here for the salaried European civil servants.

Staff in the European Parliament might get a new “aquagym and chill out rooms” worth over £8 million – see here.

But I have been really charmed by this little item in En Direct, the European Commission’s weekly internal newsletter.

The announcements section has a treat in store for officials working, on the financial crisis amongst other things, in the European Commission’s Beaulieu buildings.

“In the context of the Well Being policy, DG ADMIN has placed in the Beaulieu area a digital piano. To inaugurate the piano, from 16th to 20th February, live music in BU29 Cafeteria between 13h and 1430h performed by colleagues who are amateur musicians.”

Just the mere idea of all those DG ECFIN, and other, officials being gathered around the old Joanna for a good sing song and knees up makes the heart glow.

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Oh what a turn off

Posted by Bruno Waterfield in Brussels life, Democracy, EU, European elections on February 17, 2009

It costs £53,000 for every hour broadcast but under 160,000 people have watched it since broadcasting began in mid-September. Over 60,000 of those were in the first week.

This means that this lavishly funded European Union channel attracts less than 1200 viewers every day, from an audience of over 400 million.

It is, of course, the European Parliament’s EuroparlTV. That’s the web-TV service that will cost over £32 million over four years, over £9,000 worth of vanity programmes for each and every MEP.

The viewing figures (hat tip to Julien Frisch) are impossible to verify and have to be based on whispers or hints from various parliament sources because no official figures are being released.

I asked one parliament official if he could tell me the viewing figure. “No. We are not interested in the figures,” came his reply. Yes, things are that bad.

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