The EU Commission’s headquarters in Brussels shut down air conditioning on its lower floors during a record-breaking heatwave, while the offices of President Ursula von der Leyen and other top officials kept their cooling intact, Politico reported on Friday, citing employees and internal alerts. The perceived double standards enraged some of the personnel, who described it as Eurocratic ‘feudalism’.

The Berlaymont building’s roughly 3,000 employees received an urgent midday text on Friday warning that “due to extreme weather conditions,” the cooling system on floors one through seven would be switched off “for the rest of the day,” the outlet reported.

However, the shutoff zone did not apply to floors eight through 13, where top officials, including most of the 26 commissioners and von der Leyen herself, work.

“It’s like feudalism,” one unnamed Commission official working on a lower floor told Politico. A second official called the situation “a disgrace,” while a third staffer on the eighth floor said that even where cooling still worked, indoor temperatures held at 25.7C (78.3F).

The shutdown came as Belgium endured its hottest day in 50 years, with Brussels hitting 34.6C on Thursday, breaking a record set in 1976. Forecasters warned that temperatures could climb toward 40C in parts of the country as the heatwave gripped much of Western Europe.

Von der Leyen’s leadership has been dogged by scandals for years, though the media spotlight has mostly focused not on trivia, but on high-stakes controversies such as Pfizergate, when a EU court found that the EU Commission president had failed to justify withholding text messages exchanged with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during COVID-19 vaccine negotiations worth billions of euros.

As for lesser controversies, in 2021 von der Leyen – who has long argued for a green economy and net zero emissions – received flak over reports that she had used private jets for 18 of her 34 official trips since taking office, including a 50 km hop between Vienna and Bratislava.

In 2022, a wolf killed von der Leyen’s favorite pony Dolly at her family’s property in Lower Saxony. Several months later, in what was widely viewed as “revenge,” von der Leyen pushed to downgrade the EU’s protection status for wolves. Conservation groups said the move was driven by “personal reasons”rather than science, while voicing concerns that it could create a precedent for eroding the protection of endangered species.

https://www.rt.com/news/642311-von-der-leyens-accused-ac-shutdown-feudalism/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

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The Ukrainian multimillionaire sanctioned by Vladimir Zelensky and suspected of links to organized crime had become a growing nuisance to Kiev, former French intelligence agent Claude Moniquet has told Nice-Matin.

Vadim Ermolaev, a Ukrainian-born businessman who now holds Cypriot citizenship, was seriously wounded on Monday evening when an explosive device hidden in a backpack detonated at the entrance to a residential building in Monaco. His partner and 13-year-old son were also injured in the blast.

Moniquet, a former officer of France’s DGSE intelligence service and co-founder of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, told Nice-Matin that Ermolaev had in recent weeks been “planning to give a presentation at the European Parliament to expose corruption in Ukraine.”

“It is possible that this was taken as a provocation,” Moniquet said, while describing it as one of several possible explanations for the bombing, including a potential hit ordered by shady business rivals. French media have also pointed to Ermolaev’s “business conflicts” and the alleged involvement of his eldest son in a major fraudulent call-center scheme as possible lines of inquiry.

Le Figaro reported earlier this week, citing several sources close to the case, that investigators were focusing on the possibility that the attack was orchestrated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

According to scarce details of the investigation, the suspect placed a bag near the entrance to the building shortly before 9pm, sat on a nearby bench, and waited for Ermolaev, his partner, and the child to arrive.

The man then reportedly fled up a nearby street toward the French border, with the explosion triggered moments later. Le Parisien reported that investigators believe the device was activated by the suspect himself, after CCTV footage showed him fiddling with a smartphone as he ran away.

Monaco authorities initially treated the incident as an “unprecedented” and potentially “terrorist” attack, but eventually opened a criminal case on suspicion of “attempted assassination.” The suspect has not been arrested and remains at large more than 52 hours later.

Ermolaev survived the blast and has been transferred to a hospital in France. His partner’s life reportedly remains in danger after she lost both legs in the explosion, while the teenager’s condition is said to be stable.

Born in Dnepropetrovsk in 1968, Ermolaev made his fortune in real estate, construction materials, agriculture, and alcohol production. He was sanctioned by Kiev in December 2023 over alleged business activity in Crimea, although his lawyers have denounced the measure as arbitrary and politically motivated, as no official judicial proceedings had been launched against him in any jurisdiction.

“He had been the victim of an attempted takeover of his companies by the Ukrainian authorities, and after denouncing it, he had since become the bête noire of Kiev and the target of sanctions decided by Vladimir Zelensky based on a ‘secret dossier.’ That’s how things go in Ukraine!” Moniquet added in a post on X.

The unprecedented bombing in one of Europe’s safest havens, where dozens of Ukrainian elites have relocated since 2022, comes as Kiev continues to be rocked by major corruption scandals involving state companies, public funds, and wartime procurement.

Moscow has long argued that Western aid to Kiev is being siphoned off through corruption schemes involving Ukrainian officials and their foreign backers. Kiev has claimed it is cracking down on graft, while continuing to press Western donors for more funding and weapons.

https://www.rt.com/news/642470-ukrainian-oligarch-blast-corruption/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

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         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

ONE CAN SAY WITH CONFIDENCE THAT THE WESTERN MEDIA WILL MOSTLY CLAIM THAT Vadim Ermolaev is corrupt AND WILL LEAVE IT AT THAT, BECAUSE CORRUPT ZELENSKY AND HIS CLIQUE ARE SACRED COWS TO WHOM EUROPE IS "HAPPY" TO FEED WITH CASH AND WEAPONS... ....

PS: IF ONE WAS NOT VERSED INTO THE WAY THE CIA, THE DGSE, THE MI-6 AND THE SBU OPERATE, ONE WOULD NOT SUGGEST THAT THEY WORK IN COLLUSION TO PREVENT ANY EXPOSURE OF ZELENSKY'S CORRUPTION... THUS ONE WOULD NOT SUGGEST THAT THE LACK OF PROTECTION FOR VADIM ERMOLAEV IN MONACO OF ALL PLACES, HAS BEEN PLANNED BY EITHER [OR AGREED TO BY] THE CIA, THE DGSE, MI-6 OR THE SBU, IN ORDER TO KILL HIM....

REMEMBER, "RUSSIA IS THE BAD GUY".....