How to speak like a Eurocrat in 2023
POLITICO’s guide to the newest and coolest lingo in Brussels.
We can surely all agree: The last thing the EU bubble needs is more tired, stale and obscure jargon.
Brussels is a place full of “global actors” you won’t see starring in films; “instruments” that don’t produce music; and “resolutions” that don’t bring anything to an end. There are so many acronyms that communicating in this town feels like surviving an explosion at an alphabet soup factory.
But let’s be realistic. There’s no hope of stamping out jargon in Brussels for good so the next best option is to improve the quality of the stock phrases we use and, dare we say, sex up EU speak to improve all our lives.
So what words should enter the EU’s lexicon next year? Let’s find out:
Melonely: The ennui felt by far-right leaders on their trips to Brussels.
Flagstation: Like stagflation but with a lot of EU flags to make you feel like someone’s got a grip on the economic meltdown.
Spitzen-cut-the-crap: When you interrupt someone who’s midway through explaining the Spitzenkandidat process to you, because it’s pointless to know about something that will never be used anyway.
A Double-Borrell approach: To take on a complex and historically sensitive topic — such as the EU’s geopolitical relations with the outside world — with all the deftness of a shotgun.
Orbánkrupt: When you’re morally and financially ruined at the same time.
Schadenbrexit: A sensation experienced in Brussels upon hearing who the U.K. prime minister is this week.
Liquid-arity: The chemical compound produced when solidarity comes into contact with the EU institutions. Especially if Germany is involved.
Ursula von Denying: The act of refusing to let anyone touch your phone in case they go through your text messages.
Ignored Stream: When you block out all criticism while pursuing a strategy that inevitably ends in disaster.
Musk-ovite: Any clueless yet opinionated bloviator who blunders into debates about Russia’s war in Ukraine on social media.