According to European politicians and the Brussels elite, European citizens must also take part in the "fight against Putin", understand the necessity of sanctions, accept skyrocketing energy prices and save by turning off their air conditioning units, reduce their heating and bathe less. Members of the Brussels elite living a life of utter luxury are proposing "peculiar" solutions to promote frugality, or simply staying out of the entire savings game.

Not a day goes by without a Brussels bureaucrat or a liberal European politician saying that European citizens must realize that they too must participate in the fight against Putin’s aggression. It is enough to think of the statement of Frans Timmermans, executive vice-president of the European Commission, who said back in March that „Europeans can help in the fight against Vladimir Putin by turning down the heating in their homes. Our decisions determine how much energy we consume and how strong we are in our reaction to Russia”.

Since then, countless similar statements have been put out, Brussels is demanding more and more sanctions, and energy prices have reached such levels that

millions are dreading the winter months, for fear of not being able to heat their homes.

Apparently, however, the liberal political elite do not care. In the past few days German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a Green party politician, for example, spoke directly about how she is unfazed by people taking to the streets to protest the runaway energy prices. As she put it:

I don’t care what my German voters think; I want to fulfill what I’d promised the Ukrainian people.

Other politicians are also busy proposing tricks and practices to people on how to save, for example that they should not bathe or do the laundry, or that they should turn down the heating, with the mainstream media also chiming in by offering some of its own tips and spewing increasingly crazy ideas. Recently, some outlets have proposed that people could save „plenty” by urinating in the shower.

Those living in luxury can’t even fathom the fears of millions of Europeans

However, there are things that are simply not reported by the mainstream media. It is forbidden to talk about how the politicians who force skimping on millions of Europeans live in exorbitant luxury.

V4NA has recently published a piece on how Guy Verhofstadt, Belgium’s ex-PM and MEP of the liberal Renew Europe group, is living in a beautifully renovated 17th-century riverside heritage building in downtown Ghent, Belgium.

And indeed, the politician

has found a peculiar way of „saving” when he used a large chunk of public funds to have his riverside villa refurbished.

Mr Verhofstadt’s duplicity is obviously not unique. Brussels politicians tend to live in utter luxury while disseminating their savings advice to desperate European citizens.

„The Brussels bubble has enormous suction strength. This is a micro-world,” an Italian trainee told the Dutch paper Groene Amsterdammer. Another former official described how every moment in the lives of those who live in the Brussels bubble is permeated by the EU’s atmosphere, with their kids attending prohibitively expensive international schools paid by the European Commission with permanent contracts. Sources suggest that the most important people live in Tervuren, which – according to many – is one of the most expensive and heavily guarded towns in Europe. V4NA ‘s crew wanted to find out on the spot what life is like in this lush green suburb, where not a penny can be dropped without the locals and the authorities knowing about it.

Tervuren is only a 15-minute drive from the EU institutions in Brussels. When our crew arrived, they found themselves in an affluent neighbourhood full of luxury homes. If you look at the plots from a bird’s eye view on Google Maps, you see swimming pools and sports fields in the backyards of castle-looking homes.

They don’t appear to be saving on energy, since the pools need to be heated and cleaned, and the sports fields also require professional lighting. Solar panels or solar collectors are rarely seen in this neighbourhood, and these houses are obviously not for the wallets of the average European taxpayer. The typical asking price for an upscale property like these ranges between 1.5-2 million euros. The small town with 23,000 residents offers a number of schools, mostly attended by the offspring of the Brussels elite who live their lives in a bubble.

Although Brussels bureaucrats speak out for open borders and inclusion, they do everything they can to hide from the prying eyes of outsiders. From the streets it is nearly impossible to get a glimpse of the backyards. The dense vegetation behind the tall fences prevents anyone from seeing what’s inside and what is going on in there. Every plot is equipped with multiple surveillance cameras, so an average passer-by can’t even sneeze without being captured on video.

Just how strictly the area is protected is well-illustrated by the fact that barely a few minutes after our crew’s arrival in Tervuren, two officers appeared. They seized our phones to delete all the recently taken images. In violation of the rules, the officers also searched our car and confiscated a memory card used by our cameraman, saying no filming was allowed in the neighbourhood.

Press freedom no longer exists in #Brussels pic.twitter.com/JPpcF2Emsj

— V4NA (@V4NA_news) September 7, 2022

Frans Timmermans, as one member of this elite, has shared several posts about what life is like in Tervuren and also told the press about how he „feels completely at home” in the town.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Frans Timmermans (@frans__timmermans)

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Frans Timmermans (@frans__timmermans)

Of course, Tervuren is just one small slice of the life the Brussels elite enjoy, but even this makes it clear that

Brusselites living in the safety of their strictly-guarded, lavish homes are unable to understand ordinary people’s problems.

Sanctions are barely palpable in Russia

While sanctions are becoming all the more painful for Europe, Russians are unfazed and doing well. This was the first-hand experience about the impact of the sanctions gathered by V4NA’s crew during a trip to Russia. Apart from slight difficulties in everyday life, Russians do not feel the biting effects of the punitive measures.

Sitting deep in their Western European offices, the liberal European mainstream media’s fear-driven, ill-informed workers, serving the interests of their owners, keep churning out piece after piece on the success of the sanctions.

In reality, there are supply problems affecting various products, but the shortages are not particularly painful.

Our series of articles, presenting tips from Brussels bureaucrats on how „to save energy”, is to be continued.