EU commissioners shut down air conditioning for employees, leave theirs on

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-heatwave-hq-forced-shut-down-air-conditioning-europe/

by spwa4 • 22 days ago

139 157 22 days ago

politico.eu

Varelion• 22 days ago

Up vs down, always. Not surprising in the least.

rappatic3• 22 days ago

Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day

It's like satire. What is AC for if not extreme heat?

gambiting3• 22 days ago

Normal day to day cooling, I mean, obviously? Like if you have a system designed to operate in 25-30C(normal summer in most of Europe) but then you have a spike of temperatures going to 40C for a few days in a row, it shouldn't really be a surprise the system doesn't work in conditions it wasn't designed for? The compressor overheats and shuts down, especially if it wasn't installed in the shade.

Just like heat pumps for heating in winter are amazing for our regular mild-ish winters, but if you get a really cold spell and it drops to -35C, it's just not going to work at all to a point where it might not even start - you could also say "well what's the point of a heating system that can't heat in extreme cold".

The extreme is the keyword.

rappatic3• 22 days ago

but if you get a really cold spell and it drops to -35C

Temperatures near 40C have been recorded in Paris dozens of times since the early 2000s. I don't think the winter temperature in Paris has ever dropped much below -20C, let alone -35C. So this isn't a very fair analogy.

wongarsu3• 22 days ago

Historically temperatures above 30C (86F) were rare in Europe, so thats what many ACs are sized for. Now they face 40C (104F), and many AC installations can't keep up

Shutting down AC on floors 1 to 7 likely allows them to get better performance on floors 8 to 13

mytailorisrich5• 22 days ago

That's not true. Temperature above 30C are the norm in summer in Southern Europe (which means quite higher in the Sun and in a heat trap location). Now, yes 40C isn't.

But I am unconvinced that AC manufacturers have different "sizing"... An AC unit is for hot places and the outdoor unit may be in a very hot spots with ambient easily above 40C.

Edit: Yes, AC systems for a whole building are different but still the system on the roof experiences the full Sun and very hot conditions, this isn't the issue. Perhaps they simply badly designed it so that it hasn't got the capacity to cool the whole building when it's actually hot so they prioritised (actually now I get that this is what you meant). Obviously it is easier to blame "weather conditions"...

slillibri• 22 days ago

When there is not enough AC, people sweat. It’s better for half to sweat to death so the other half can remain frosty.

Arnt2• 22 days ago

FWIW this happened on Friday afternoon and the AC was back in working order on Monday morning.

Oras2• 22 days ago

The heat wave has prompted a renewed discussion about the lack of air-conditioning systems in homes and offices across much of Europe

Discussion, common sense requires discussion. All you need to know about them in one sentence.

basisword4• 22 days ago

Most ordinary working people can't afford the cost of installing a system. Even a portable one.

Edit: Downvoted because HN users don't understand living paycheque to paycheque. Talk about an echo chamber.

christkv• 22 days ago

What are you on about. They are not expensive at all. What they can't afford is to pay the electrical bill of running one.

Oras2• 22 days ago

Most people can’t afford private jets, let’s ban them for those officials then

ExoticPearTree• 22 days ago

A 12K BTU mini-split system is about 300EUR. How is this unaffordable for most people? Even an 18K unit is about 500-600EUR.

wnevets6• 22 days ago

Something is very wrong with the EU if ordinary Europeans can't afford a $150 window unit.

black3r3• 22 days ago

It's not that expensive. There are other reasons why people can't install one in Europe than money. Mostly for people living in apartments. In an apartment building you need the approval of other apartment owners to "modify the building facade". And some people have terrible neighbors. Another thing that happens in Europe is that if the building is 100+ years old, it's facade may be protected as a "historic building" and then you need another approval from some bureaucrats which are responsible for protecting historic buildings. And of course if you're renting, you need to convince your landlord if you want a proper AC not a portable one.

graton• 22 days ago

Most ordinary working people can't afford the cost of installing a system. Even a portable one.

I just watched a video where a person bought a £200 portable unit. He was using it in the UK and said he spent about £0.89 / day. And I'm assuming they won't use it for that many days a year.

Seems affordable enough for "most ordinary working people"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOmzVWTH3xo

Markoff3• 22 days ago

funny take

Bulgaria is one of the poorest EU countries and I have seen there way more ACs than in much richer Czechia or elsewhere, this is not about price at all

heck, even in Czechia I find much more ACs in some poor cities compared to the richest Prague, I've seen bigger AC ratio per apartment in my small poor ~40K hometown than in Prague, in our 40 units building in Prague I was the first one to have AC, after many years now followed by neighbor under me, 2 out of 40 units in relatively rich Prague, crazy (though it's true our top corner of the building is warmest from all apartments)

zzzeek• 22 days ago

there is significant resistance to air conditioning in Europe at many levels (all of which are invalid or solvable):

* "not technically feasible" - people talk about old buildings with oddly shaped windows

* "can't afford it" - as you see here. people talk about the units themselves and the electricity bills

* "our infrastructure can't handle it" - this has to do with things like grids overheating, failing

* "our infrastructure can't handle <the regulations>" - things like nuclear reactors in France not allowed to raise the temperature of rivers by another N degrees during a heat wave

* "it's bad for global warming" - a little late for that, probably should save lives first

literally hospitals in europe don't have AC throughout the entire building yet. global warming is really coming at them fast

Nursie• 22 days ago

I don't know how well it translates to the EU countries, but there seems to be this idea in the UK that air conditioning is a decadent frivolity, and really only for the weak.

And yes it does seem to get singled out as bad for global warming, which is odd as people in the UK most often use gas to heat their houses, where AC is very efficient and can use electricity from whatever source. It also works as very energy-efficient heating in winter.

Tarq0n• 22 days ago

In the past with harmful refrigerants and lack of renewable energy AC simply was not justifiable in most of Europe. Progress on both fronts plus global warming is changing that only recently.

bee_rider2• 22 days ago

On the bright side they’ve probably waited long enough to roll out heat pumps instead of window ACs, right?

quantummagic3• 22 days ago

Some of the discussion going online, has asserted that heat related deaths in Europe exceed gun related deaths in the USA by some margin. If true, it has been ignored as a problem for too long.

delecti• 22 days ago

Yeah, annual heat deaths in Europe (about 70k) exceed annual gun deaths in the US (about 44k) in absolute numbers. They're slightly under US gun deaths if you adjust for population (about 13 per 100k gun deaths in the US, and 12 heat deaths per 100k in Europe).

In comparison, fewer than 2k people die annually of heat in the US, well under 1 per 100k. And for symmetry, there are about 7k gun deaths annually in the EU, which is just slightly under 1 per 100k.

snehk• 22 days ago

You can't trust those numbers, though. If you get drunk and jump into a river and drown it's counted as a heat related death.

mancerayder2• 22 days ago

Well the Greens in Europe handed Russia leverage thanks to relying on natural gas instead of nuclear, which it opposed (thanks German Greens).

In France these ideologues oppose A/C becauase it's evil: it makes us comfortable when we should be uncomfortable - if we are comfortable in an era of climate change, we'll only make it worse. And it's all America's fault anyway because of their emissions.

When do we vote out ideologues and have logical people in power?

redserk• 22 days ago

This nuclear argument is getting quite stale. Germany seems to be investing quite a bit in other energies just fine.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...

120GW of nameplate solar capacity is nothing to sneeze at even with the latitude challenge. That's more solar than almost all of California's energy generation combined, or most of the eastern United States.

ericfr11• 17 days ago

Its true everywhere: Lots of homes in New Jersey don't have AC: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/05/heatwave-dea...

cbarnes99• 22 days ago

Why the fuck does extreme heat require turning off the AC?

nickff• 22 days ago

Seems like power shortages:

”The European Parliament has also faced blackouts this week due to energy consumption from cranking up its cooling system.”

dranudin• 22 days ago

The A/C cannot keep up the load, due to the exteme heat. So they decided to just not cool one part of the building, to be able to keep cooling the other part .. It is now interesting who was in which part ;)

mytailorisrich5• 22 days ago

If that's the case then the building's system was very badly designed...

forgotaccount3• 22 days ago

Clearly those in floors 1->7 were less important and thus allowed to take the day off and/or work remotely, right?

pgalvin• 22 days ago

The article indicates they were unable to handle the increased electricity load, which caused blackouts.

Additionally, sometimes unnaturally high temperatures break AC systems put in place with poor planning. This is very common in UK supermarkets every summer.

ctoth2• 22 days ago

unnaturally high temperatures
poor planning.
very common in UK supermarkets every summer.

What?

wongarsu3• 22 days ago

Based on the little information provided the AC can't keep up. So they cut off the lower half of the building to provide better cooling to the other half

ceejayoz2• 22 days ago

Which, as heat rises, is probably reasonable.

basisword4• 22 days ago

Presumably the AC systems themselves couldn't operate in that extreme heat. A lot of grocery stores in the UK, which are icy cold usually, had major issues with AC and refrigeration systems failing - I think because a lot of the equipment is on the roof and exposed to the heat.

lstodd• 22 days ago

AC systems don't quite care about direct sunlight, they are forced air heat exchangers. Now if the condenser (rooftop) side is undersized and therefore inadequate given elevated ambient air temperature all you can do is shut down a portion of evaporation side (the cold one) off, or the entire system just stops working.

Alternatively one can install water sprinkers on roofs like they do in China.

pkaye• 22 days ago

Its pretty common to se the AC systems on the top of roofs on big buildings in the US. From what I read, exposing the AC condenser unit to the sun should have minimal impact. Air flow through the condenser unit matters the most. Perhaps they were undersized for the extreme heat now happening in the UK.

black3r3• 22 days ago

my guess is that the outdoor AC unit reached its maximum working temperature...

since we're not that used to extreme heat in EU, units with max working temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius are pretty common and the air around the AC unit is warmer than regular outdoors air, doubly so if they're placed on the ground and the glass from the building reflects some additional heat from the sun.

the risk of this was broadcasted in our local news for home AC owners when the forecast reached 40, as lots of apartments have the AC on partly glass-encased balconies, or on walls facing direct sunlight...

gwbas1c3• 22 days ago

Because a lot of electric grids are too old to handle the increased load.

To translate: When it's hot, air conditioners use more electricity. This is because they use more electricity because they have to work harder to keep a cool temperature.

The reason why electric grids are too old to handle the load is because:

Electric grids were built for smaller populations with the assumption that we'll build more as we make more babies; AND; electric grids weren't built to handle the temperature rise from climate change.

joe_mamba4• 21 days ago

Because a lot of electric grids are too old to handle the increased load.

Well maybe we can cool ourselves with gas/oil burning air conditioners like in winter.

with the assumption that we'll build more as we make more babies

Babies don't build infrastructure. And EU cities had more migration instead of babies and yet they still didn't build more infrastructure to keep up with the migration population growth. Why is that?

electric grids weren't built to handle the temperature rise from climate change.

But somehow they're built to handle running all the new heat pumps we want to have in winter?

vovavili• 22 days ago

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

dylan6042• 22 days ago

This exact quote ran through my mind and I was tempted to post it.

papichulo2023• 22 days ago

This is a reference to Animal Farm, right?

felooboolooomba• 22 days ago

No, Scrooge McDuck right before he sodomized Donald Duck.

lysace• 22 days ago

Related and a little ironic: houses in northern Europe nowadays typically have "AC" in the form of air-to-air heat pumps that both can heat and cool. Houses in southern and central Europe dramatically lag behind in terms of adoption.

dylan6042• 22 days ago

And all of those Europeans that had comments about the Texas ERCOT warnings of heavy loads during extreme weather. Although, it's been a while since I've received notices/requests to adjust the use even if they were bump it up a few degrees vs turn it off.

dotcoma• 22 days ago

Reminds me of Animal Farm.

cineticdaffodil4• 22 days ago

Imagine offices- who have temperatures of 30+ directly beneath the roof. AC where the heat-exchangers are built inside the buildings and other nonsense on top. Europe is so not ready, while preaching to the world about getting ready.

caycep2• 22 days ago

With new inexpensive mini splits that do not require ducts, one would think adoption would go up?

cassepipe• 22 days ago

The first image is telling: A glass building in front of a white hard-floor plaza with just one small tree for shade

Nothing specific to the European commission though, we just don't hate mainstream architects enough

cineticdaffodil4• 22 days ago

It would burn less, if not all these abstract architects would sit in old art nouveau buildings near a park, with the AC tastefully hidden in the backyard - and there they sit on the MAC, shitting out these etched waver under the ERM buildings and cities for the rest of us to be miserable in.

65105• 22 days ago

It once struck me that so called school chairs are actually far more fascinating than one would think. To me, they are the ultimate symbol of something one would never buy to use yourself.

https://www.google.com/search?num=10&sa=X&sca_esv=9e14c54052...

Look at those torture devices! They don't even look like chairs.

delichon• 22 days ago

It's not exactly the Council of Elrond. It's appropriate for the design to be closer to Barad-dûr than Rivendell.

wlesieutre• 22 days ago

If we're pulling LotR references, a white plaza with one tree is the Court of the Fountain at the top of Minas Tirith

ricardobayes• 22 days ago

What's up with the knee-jerk hate on EU lately?

port11• 21 days ago

Oh, we definitely hate them A LOT in Belgium, for what they did to the historic district. The revamped EU district is an ugly, inefficient, traffic-heavy abomination. It’s crazy that we destroyed all the Art Deco and Art Nouveau townhouses to make space for the EU’s steel-and-glass nonsense.

invictati• 22 days ago

The whole conversation about upper and lower floors is absurd. Obviously the upper floors are absorbing more sunlight and need more cooling.

Ground level and basement floors have been known as the coolest places in skyscrapers for centuries.

phendrenad2• 22 days ago

Any building with modern (last 100 years) insulation is going to have relatively equal distribution of heat between the floors. Except the bottom floor, where people enter/exit and mix in outside air.

preommr• 22 days ago

Except it wasn't the basement and first floor.

It was the first seven floors. Coincidentally, also the floors most of the higher-ups don't work on. Or at least that's how it's being reported, so I don't think people's outrage is absurd.

alistairSH5• 22 days ago

4pm on a Friday, people were likely already heading home. This is being blown out of proportion.

The broader discussion about AC in Europe is good to have, but this specific story seems to be borderline click-bait.

Havoc• 22 days ago

wow that’s an ugly look.

Kinda weird though even for Europe that a high profile 10+ floor commercial building doesn’t have suitable climate control

frollogaston6• 22 days ago

"even with working AC, the temperature inside was still 25.7 degrees."

So 78F. I wonder what temp the lower/non-AC floors are at. It's reasonable if they want to prevent the upper floors from becoming insanely hot, since hot air rises.

lumrn• 22 days ago

Just adding some context on the AC and the building as well which was explained by journalist David Carretta (who follows EU politics, written in Italian) here https://x.com/davcarretta/status/2071592636260012175.

To summarise, AC was turned off floor by floor, with the switch off starting from 16:00 over a Friday, a time when most administrative personnel is getting off work for the weekend. The entire building had AC switched off by the end of the day, including the upper floors. Note that AC was working fine this Monday.

throwa356262• 22 days ago

Oh please, I needed my daily dose of internet rage and EU hate and here you are with you damn facts.

(Seriously, look at these comments. What is happening to HN? Is this what previously productive people now do with their free time while their agents are churning?)

frollogaston6• 22 days ago

I stopped reading that Twitter the post the moment it said "so the deniers (or former ones) are now building a new campaign" which was the second sentence. But only after I had already dismissed the Politico article as ragebait.

TMWNN• 22 days ago

From <https://www.euractiv.com/news/heatwave-shuts-down-berlaymont...>, corroborating the Politico report:

Staff working in the building told Euractiv that the air conditioning failure did not affect the floors above level 8, where Ursula von der Leyen, her European commissioners and their cabinets are based.

otikik• 22 days ago

If the people in the lower decks were allowed to go home, I don't see the issue.

If they were forced to work without air conditioning and it was me, I would go to a doctor, tell them I am suffering from heat exhaustion, and get a voucher for not returning to work until the situation gets fixed.

alistairSH5• 22 days ago

The shutdown began at 4pm on a Friday. So, yes, much of the building was on its way home for the weekend. And the higher floors are mostly allocated to the leadership/commissioners, who are more likely to work after hours.

Now, why can't the building handle running the AC without an emergency shutdown? No clue, seems odd to me, unless there was a neighborhood-wide power issue?

zuzululu• 22 days ago

What really appalls me is that they have now started to blame Americans for the heatwave that the hot air from AC units are to blame and doubling down on their insistence that AC are harmful to the climate and telling people to not use AC.

I really think that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back moment for EU. Right now people are learning that EU = unbearable heat and other things.

frollogaston6• 22 days ago

Are you talking about the Paris deputy mayor, or did someone else also do this?

anonzzzies2• 22 days ago

Air conditioning weirdness around the EU: I live in the EU and everyone I know, including not too well off people on benefits and pensions, have aircon. I have multiple houses and dozens of aircons, but many friends in small apartments have them too, mostly since covid. In one house I have them running summer and winter 247 and the electric bill is still below 100E, way lower than people with swimming pools.

kleiba23• 22 days ago

It depends on the country. If you live in a place that - traditionally - had only an expected few days of really hot temperatures every summer, it wasn't worth the investment. With climate change, the temperatures are now higher and the heat stretches longer.

anonzzzies2• 22 days ago

Agreed, the EU is not that small and Southern countries had to go before northern but now I feel it is pretty normal. Might be my circle of course. Or in a shorter way; YMMV. I know zero people without aircon and one couple live fulltime in a yurt.

cmoski• 22 days ago

"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."

I set my AC to 26 degrees. Otherwise it feels too cold.

deaux• 22 days ago

This is Daily Mail (or Fox News for fellow Americans) level tripe, and you can be almost sure of this just based on the title. Designed for dopamine maximization.

vmilner• 22 days ago

Yes Minister on point as usual

https://youtu.be/x-HBsT6GmMs?t=69

Markoff3• 22 days ago

don't wanna sound like shill but for all people claiming you need some permit when installing one they should look into something like Midea PortaSplit - it's portable, but at same time it's like your regular multisplit unit, much more efficient

personally I have at home Toshiba, father has Mitsubishi, but when living in China had experiences with all major Chinese brands like Gree, Midea, Haier, etc. and would have zero worries about their quality, they produce shitton of them for CN market

EU commissioners shut down air conditioning for employees, leave theirs on

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