Welcome
Brussels Bubble Babble presents facts, trivia and anecdotes about life in the EU bureaucratic capital. It is not about politics or policies. It’s about everything else. Funny, shocking, irrelevant or irreverent tales about the lighter things.
It has been said that ‘Brussels is boring, and the EU makes it even more boring’. This site aims to ease that boredom a bit, under the slogan: ‘A babble or two about EU Brussels a day, keeps the bureaucratic boredom at bay.’
Everything on this site is true, more or less. Most stories are personal experiences. There are ten sections with 250 stories.
If you have fun stories that you want others to know about, send an e-mail anonymously to stories@brusselsbubblebabble.eu. If the story or trivia is fun, we will put it on the site.
| WARNING: You are strongly advised not to read the stories on this site if you suffer from any of the following conditions: virtuous seriousness, humourlessness, political correctness, Europhilia or self-aggrandization. Nothing is serious – unless you want it to be. |
Click on each section to read the stories
All stories in alphabetical order
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- ‘Two job’ MEPs
- ‘Enlarged’ Commission staff
- ‘Faulty Towers’
- ‘New’ words and phrases
- ‘Participatory’ democracy
- ‘Personal methane budgets’
- ‘Room for improvement’ areas in Brussels
- ‘Sexy days’ during Council meetings
- ‘Sign-in and sod–off’
- A €53,000 lunch
- A brown envelope
- A glass of wine, or ten
- A step too far
- Academics for hire?
- Activist action
- Advice for new MEPs
- Advice from the boss
- African safari paid by the Parliament
- Air-conditioning
- All about the diplomats
- American idioms
- Anti-harassment campaigns
- Anti-media guard
- Anyone you would not work for?
- Art in EU Brussels: symbolic strangeness
- Bad English
- Beautiful words
- Bending the truth, a bit
- Better safe than sorry
- Big brother is watching
- Boredom
- Breweries, zoos, nazis and nuns
- British dirty talk
- British PM confounds his colleagues
- Brouhaha
- Brussels basics
- Brussels meeting madness
- Building Brand Europe
- Buying coverage
- Can we all speak the same language?
- Caribbean tourism
- Celebrity ‘star power’
- Change in lobbyland
- Chemicals make you emotional
- Colourful lobbyists
- Colourful symbolism
- Commission defines orgasms
- Commission staff scandals
- Commission: ‘dos and don’ts’ when dealing with lobbyists
- Comparing Brussels and DC
- Corrupt parliamentarians
- Crafty (ex) Commissioners
- Crooked civil servants?
- Cultural differences
- Delightful misunderstandings
- Dirty-minded journalist
- Disabled people jumping off a building
- Diversity in EU Brussels
- Do not mention the war
- Do you want a date?
- Don’t mention the cash Paddy
- Drugs in EU Brussels
- Embarrassing EU moments
- Embassy parties and stagiaires parties
- Environmental engagement
- Espionage
- EU brands logos, days, years and capitals
- EU Cash: roads to nowhere, fairy tales, bicycle shacks and more
- EU Cliques and clans
- EU officials
- EU officials’ exclusive supermarket
- EU-Russia Summit
- Euro phrases
- Eurobabble
- EuroNews
- Europe outside Europe
- European Medicines Agency: sex, drugs, but no rock ‘n roll
- European Parliament film festival
- European Parliament film festival
- Exorcising frustrations – ten ‘no mores’
- Farmer fantasies
- Food fights
- Fraud
- Fraudulent farmers
- Free food game
- Free stuff
- Freebies
- French language misunderstandings
- Front groups
- Fun acronyms
- Fun things the EU taxpayer paid for
- Ghostwriters and idea makers: the oil in the EU machinery
- Greek drama
- Gripe from the media – favouring the Financial Times
- Hands-off the MEP assistants
- Hanky panky
- Harassment
- Hors category
- Hot air balloon
- How EU civil servants irritate
- How EU leaders travel in style
- How lobbyists get paid
- How many people work in the European Commission?
- How power and influence change
- How to save elephants
- Idiots, ‘stupid’ MEPs and politicians’ nasty nicknames
- Industry associations
- Influence
- Interpret and translate
- Is that really your name?
- Is the President saying what I think he is?
- It’s not a meeting – it’s a ‘convergence’
- Jacques’ Palace
- Jewish gold and Swiss clocks
- Jiggery-pokery by the Parliament
- Journalist spies
- Journalists ‘going native’
- Journalists and lobbyists: close, but too close?
- Ladies of the night
- Language
- Lawyers: lawsuits, legislation, and lobbying legitimacy
- Leakers list
- Leaking secrets
- Lobbying for Mother Russia
- Lobbyists for hire
- Lobbyists language
- Lobbyphobia
- Love and hate between the EU and media
- Love to drive
- Lunch secrets
- Madam mama
- Making boring things interesting
- Making fun of the EU: magazines, sites and shows
- May we interpret that for you?
- Media jargon
- MEP’s preferences
- MEPs to watch
- Mistakes
- Money
- Money for nothing
- Moonlighting for the EU
- More linguistic misunderstandings
- More peculiar people
- National quotas in the institutions
- Naughty language habit
- Naughty typo game
- New slogans for the institutions
- No, but really, how many people?
- Officials’ favourite expressions
- Our language
- Parties in the Parliament
- Paying journalists
- People
- People getting caught in the Parliament
- Perfect Inglish
- Plane problems
- Pleasure
- Pocketing the visitor’s allowance
- Polling for the right answer
- Post turtle
- Powerful and peculiar people
- PR words and P words
- Preoccupations of the bored
- Presents for journalists
- Privacy Policy
- Promoting Europe through cartoons
- Public relations and media
- Qualities to be successful in EU Brussels
- Recharging MEPs Christmas gifts
- Royals
- Russian and Chinese spies
- Seal Wellington
- Secret Commission employee ethnicity list
- Secret green PR machine
- Secret list of journalists
- Secret meetings
- Secret report on EU officials’ greenhouse gases
- Secret symbolism in the EU flag
- Secret tunnels and rooms
- Secrets
- Sending underwear to journalists
- Sexy job on the side
- Slippery Selmayr
- Sloganitis
- Smart US Ambassador
- Smoking and the EU – kicking the habit EU style
- Social cases in the EU institutions
- Spell check
- Spies at the Council
- Spying on EU staff
- Strange Ambassadors
- Subsidy humour
- Sweat and skin
- Taxpayer funded protesters
- The Beautiful Berlaymont
- The beautiful vagueness of English
- The best art piece: Entropa
- The best parties
- The Commission lobbyists
- The dirty direct Dutch
- The dislikables
- The drab euro district
- The EU institution’s lawyers
- The EU’s own media
- The EU’s Prize culture: a glut of awards with mixed impact
- The Eurovision song contest
- The feta man – a tale of corruption
- The Folly of the Gods
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Brussels’ EU media
- The high point
- The management consultants
- The most expensive language
- The not so nice Belgian view of EU civil servants
- The pilot, his wife, and her Ambassador lover
- The President doing things in style
- The rise of the ‘lawyer lobbyists’
- The slippery professions
- The space egg
- The spokespeople
- The strangest secret about the EU
- The stupidest/rudest things said by politicians
- The tabloids always tell the truth
- The trip to the Parliament
- The truth about what we really think of other Europeans
- The U.S. Marine Corps in EU Brussels
- The Vagina Monologues
- Things
- Things’ lobbyists do that make them look bad
- Tillack’s Tickle
- Toilet humour
- Travel policy problems
- Travelling to Tbilisi
- Unknown but real English words that could be useful in EU Brussels
- Useful tips for journalists
- Using the right words for the right effect
- We are listening: ears everywhere
- We love Members of the European Parliament
- Weirdos in the European Parliament
- What Brits mean
- What do people eat at EU canteens?
- What does an MEP cost?
- What is a good lobbyist?
- What is Eurofederalism?
- What lobbyists do: 20 tactics – from standard to illegal
- What people think about lobbyists
- What people think about think tanks
- What they say and what they mean
- What think tanks do
- What’s in a job title?
- What’s in a name?
- What’s the plan?
- When journalists write terrible English
- Where to send retired prime ministers and presidents
- Where’s the friction in Brussels?
- Whistleblowers
- Who do I call?
- Who has the most lobbyists?
- Who says Austrians are prim?
- Who’s got the cash?
- Whoops
- Why we love lawyers
- Working for dictators