The European Commission switched off air conditioning for its lower-floor workers during a brutal heatwave while the floors housing top officials stayed cool.

Employees inside the Berlaymont building in Brussels got an alert on their phones at noon Friday that read, “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,” according to POLITICO. The order left floors one through seven without relief for the remainder of the day.

That boundary mattered. The 13-floor headquarters holds Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, her 26 commissioners and roughly 3,000 staff, POLITICO reported. Von der Leyen occupies the top floor, and the bulk of her commissioners sit on the eighth floor or higher, placing them safely above the shutoff zone. (RELATED: France Faces Hottest Day On Record And 40 People Drowned Amid Heatwave)

Lower-ranking staff did not take it well. One official stationed beneath the commissioner floors called the situation “like feudalism,” while a second labeled it “a disgrace,” according to POLITICO. A staffer on the eighth floor, where the cooling kept running, told the outlet the room still hit 25.7 degrees Celsius.

The European Commission’s headquarters was forced to shut down its air-conditioning system today due to the heat wave.https://t.co/LQtII5kinU

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) June 26, 2026

Frustration had been building before the shutdown. The Commission told employees earlier in the week to drink water often, start their shifts sooner and stay indoors during peak heat, advice that irritated workers in buildings lacking any cooling at all, including the agriculture directorate, POLITICO reported.

The heat punishing Brussels has gripped much of the continent. A weather pattern known as an Omega block has driven temperatures as high as 18 degrees Celsius above normal, and France logged its hottest day in nearly 80 years at 44.3 degrees, according to CBC News. The event has killed dozens of people and knocked out power in several areas.

Europe’s thin cooling infrastructure made the strain worse. Only about a fifth of households on the continent own air conditioning, POLITICO reported. Belgian rail canceled numerous rush-hour trains because a fifth of its fleet has no cooling, and the European Parliament suffered blackouts this week as its own system pushed energy demand past capacity.