Hello! Brussels is emptying. The city hosts around 37,000 EU staff and between 123,000 and 163,000 workers connected to the international bubble, including at NATO, consultancies, and embassies, according to 2022 Belgium government data.
As many of those people are gone on holiday now, a stroll around the EU Quarter can make you feel rather alone. This week I realized I had to join Europe’s pilgrimage to the south when I went to my favorite sandwich place close to the office — Au Fil des Saveurs — and it was closed for summer break.
The EU’s intense transition period has also come to a halt — for now — and so EU Transition Playbook will take a break for two weeks. Don’t worry, we will be back on August 23.
Before that, join me for a rundown of how the institutions are cooling off — and how they could ruin things for staff by recalling them in the middle of summer. We will also dig into a brewing Commission-Parliament fight and get some summer reading recommendations from EU politicians.
The Parliament is on official recess until chinese overseas british database 1 September. Until then, the shuttles transporting mail between the three Parliament seats and the “offer of catering” will be reduced, the Parliament press service told me.
The Council, though not on official recess, will not have ministerial or ambassadorial meetings, just some technical gatherings. Activity will restart with ambassadorial meetings on September 4.
But… Council staff do have a bit more work than usual due to this being a transition year, the press service said. As letters from members states giving their nominees for the next Commission must be in by August 30, the Council’s General Secretariat must process them all and issue them as Council documents.