Inside out

Our fortnightly digest of facts and rumours from Brussels and beyond.

Sign of the times

It hasn’t been a great year for the EU. The Eurocrisis, Greece, Spain, budget problems… all fodder for the Eurosceptics. It therefore came as a shock to hear that, last week, the European Parliament seemed quite literally on the brink of collapse, after cracks were discovered in the roof of its main debating chamber in Brussels. The building had to be evacuated, and surrounding offices were temporarily relocated. Let’s hope this isn’t an omen: after all the roof of the Parliament building in Strasbourg collapsed in August 2008, just a month before the world’s economy did the same.