Alongside the 24 languages of the European Union, there is an unofficial 25th: acronyms. It's a language so multifarious and ubiquitous that even ministers are often squinting at their briefing documents, wondering whether they are about fisheries policy or an obscure medical condition.
As if Brussels wasn't enough of a bureaucratic swamp already, these acronyms have added into the mire a linguistic maze that even the most hardened diplomats find impenetrable.
Take the European Council, where ministers may discuss EDIP and EPF in the FAC and GAC while the TTE Council approves PPWR and debates the SET. If that sentence left you dizzy, welcome to the club.
Just in case yer not up on lingo, these stand for the European Defence Industrial Development Programme, the European Peace Facility, the Foreign Affairs Council, the General Affairs Council, the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, and the Strategic Energy Technology plan.
Got that...?
Some acronyms are more benign but no less baffling. Take SYSPER, for instance. While this may sound like a cyber-security protocol, in reality it’s just the EU’s HR department. Then there’s CSDDD (or CS3D), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.
Of course, acronyms aren't just a Brussels quirk: governments everywhere like to take some grandiose name and compress it into something bite-sized. Sometimes the consequences are unexpected. In 2005, where officials suggested that the new department in charge would be the Department for Productivity, Energy, Industry, and Science. It wasn't until then-Trade Secretary Alan Johnson wrote it down that he realised his great new department had the title PEnIS.
However, these EU acronyms do have a purpose: They save the officials from saying a full title that could very well stretch much beyond their alloted speaking time. They streamline communication, once deciphered, and help distill the complex policies into easy-to-chew bits.
Most importantly, they keep Brussels' reputation as an impregnable fortress of gibberish.
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It only needs one acronym tbh.
Socialist quango
Haha I like it!
👍 cheers LOL
They need a DOGE real quick
Funny I was just thinking Musk wld have a FD!
Brussels is FUBAR apparently.. that's Fucked Up Beyond All Repair for everyone else..
I got it!