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Published fact-check
Claim checked
“The European Commission literally shut off air conditioning but only for floors 1-7, where people of lower rank work.”
Published
Rechecked · no new readable sources found
The claim is accurate. Reporting from Politico and other outlets confirms that the European Commission shut off air conditioning on floors 1 through 7 of its Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels during a heat wave on June 26, 2026. The upper floors, where Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her commissioners work, were not included in the shutdown.
The core of the claim is directly verified by primary reporting. On June 26, 2026, staff at the European Commission's Berlaymont building received an urgent text message stating: "BERL — URGENT — Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day." Politico reported the incident, and a separate outlet confirmed the same details.
The building's layout supports the claim's framing about rank. The 13-story Berlaymont is home to about 3,000 staff. Commission President von der Leyen works on the 13th floor, while most of her 26 commissioners have offices on the eighth floor and above. That leaves the lower floors for the bulk of the institution's workforce, which is consistent with the claim's characterization of floors 1–7 as housing people of lower rank.
The shutdown was described as an emergency response to extreme heat, not a deliberate policy targeting junior staff. Still, the practical outcome matches the claim exactly: cooling was cut only on floors 1–7, leaving leadership offices unaffected. The factual substance of the post is therefore accurate.
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4 reviewed sources behind this verdict.
Politico report quoting the exact SMS message sent to staff and detailing which floors were affected.
Independent confirmation of the floors affected and additional context on the building's layout and the heat wave.
Heatwave knocks out air conditioning at European Commission ... European commissioners are located on the upper floors of the 13-story building.
Europe's heatwave has crashed much of the air cooling system in the Berlaymont headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels.