A look at EU Tech HQ – POLITICO

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Expressed by artificial intelligence.

Monday morning returns to the office can be cruel, especially if you work in the European Union’s digital policy department.

Since moving to new premises on Brussels’ rue du Pouvoir, rue de la Loi, in June 2022, officials from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Content and Communication Network Technologies (DG CONNECT) have had to coping with two reshuffles of office life: a post-pandemic shift to more remote working and the impact of a raging energy crisis not to mention being kicked out of their dining room by massive tulips inspired by the cryptocurrency bubble.

Soaring energy prices triggered by fallout from the war in Ukraine led the Commission to turn down the heating in all its buildings, with thermostats set at 19 degrees Celsius.

But earlier this week, as the digital department’s glass and painted metal tower warms further, temperatures can reach 16 degrees Celsius, said Ivan Brincat, the department’s press chief.

When POLITICO visited DG CONNECT at the end of December, employees were complaining about having to pack extra sweaters. Not everyone was complaining: those lucky enough to sit near a window with good exposure to the sun can expect almost mild temperatures on a good day.

Indeed, POLITICO’s visit to the 11th floor of departments, which houses its communications staff, revealed temperatures fluctuating wildly between different parts of the office, with the sunniest part reaching 23.6 degrees Celsius and the darkest section stuck at 20.5 degrees Celsius.

Fortunately, Brincat said, DG CONNECT has adopted a “hot-desking” policy, encouraging people to put their laptops or plug in their keyboards where they prefer on their floor, and to move to other floors if necessary.

One such level set to explode is the building’s fourth floor, which deals with online platforms, as the Commission sets up a new team to enforce the bloc’s historic regulations: the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act.

Like all other employees, they will be expected to work from the office for a minimum of two and a maximum of four days per week. To avoid office shortages, different units ask employees to come into the office on different days.

Apart from the director general of DG CONNECT, Roberto Viola, his two deputies and his nine unit directors, no one has separate offices. Its open space and shared offices all around, Brincat said.

An open plan layout had already been experimented with in parts of DG CONNECT in the 2010s under then Digital Commissioner Neelie Kroes. When in June the department moved from its old building (frustratingly for many civil servants) away from Avenue de Beaulieu in south-east Brussels to its current building, it embraced the experience as a general policy.

art for lunch

Usually, DG CONNECT staff members ate lunch on the ground floor of the buildings, in a large open space with French doors opening onto a lovely terrace. But when POLITICO visited, that was not the case.

On December 1, the tables, Tupperware and lunchtime chatter were replaced with futuristic art installations. The art exhibition is part of S+T+ARTS, a Commission initiative encouraging art with a focus on technology themes, and will run until the end of February.

The art exhibition is part of a Commission initiative promoting art with a focus on technological themes | Gian Volpicelli/POLITICS

The 12 artworks and music videos all riffed on the promise and peril of emerging technologies. A recreation of a 1960s-style living room showcased the dangers of manipulated videos, via a deepfake of US President Richard Nixon delivering fictitious televised remarks about a failed 1969 moon landing.

Two LCD screens (a third was inexplicably turned off) illuminated by images of blooming, wilting tulips; the growth and decay of the flowers were algorithmically determined by the peaks and troughs in bitcoin price. Tulips, of course, were a nod to another financial bubble: 17th century Tulipmania.

There was a critical view of dating apps, and there was DNA-inspired music; there was a headless statue whose face was designed in real time on a screen by an artificial intelligence except that the screen was cluttered with pop-ups about software updates.

Curator Nicolas Wierinck, an artist working with the art association Gluon, rushed to fix the rogue screen. See the problem with technology? said Wierinck.

Tell that to a department made up of officials tasked with launching major regulatory crackdowns on the global tech sector.

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