Buzek warning followed with immediate effect

Peace and serenity in Brussels

The President of the European Parliament issued a stark warning yesterday in an interview given to Euractiv: “Freezing the European Union’s budget as demanded by some countries would be “very dangerous”" (see full article here).

Brussels is obviously used to these type of bland excessive statements but in this case, the harsh reality lurking behind President Buzek’s words was illustrated immediately yesterday afternoon, when the phone lines of  all EU institutions in Brussels were cut off by the Belgian telecoms operators Belgacom. The official line? A technical glitch. The real story as unveiled by BJ reporters? An unpaid invoice to Belgacom that led the Belgian partially state-owned company to pull the plug (for readers unaware of Belgian cultural specificities, ‘pulling the plug’ is a national sport which does however in general apply more to the national government than to utilities facilities).

Protest ran high amongst the civil servants that noticed the #failwhale moment of their telephony infrastructure. Amongst the collected reactions, one civil servant told us: ‘What’s the point in being bored numb in this silly job, if it’s no longer compensated by calling my buddies in the Seychelles to exchange weather information”. Another ‘fonctionnaire’ told us they were particularly outraged as the phone lines coming from outside were not working, but “their senile control freak boss could still reach them through the internal system. I mean, what’s the point of being cut off if the ones that make your life miserable can still reach you?”.

Though it is unclear how the issue was resolved so quickly, it seems that an unnamed ex-Commissioner may have been so kind to help out his former institutional patch. After all, it is a known fact that once the revolving doors have been actioned, cash piles in. When asked for a reaction, the ex-Commissioner simply said that “I used to lobby them using the internal system but now that I am on the outside, it is critical for me that the phone lines to call my good buddies function properly”.

No one from the Commission was available for a reaction…. but then maybe the phones are down again?