Brussels was thrown into disarray today after Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša repeatedly refused to accept the results of a vote that would have seen him cede the EU Presidency on 31 December.
With counts completed in all of the bloc’s 27 states, control of the Council of the EU was set to shift to France’s President Macron, as part of a transfer of power that has historically always been as peaceful as it is pointless.
Yet Janša, who has unbeknownst to most non-nerds served as EU president since July, reportedly flew off the handle when aides informed him he would soon be stripped of the position. The plucky Ljubljanjan has vowed to go all the way to the European Court of Justice to overturn a result he says was “riddled by fraud.”
Janša’s hastily assembled legal team, headed by the guy who wrote the AstraZeneca contract, points to alleged flaws in the ratification of Council Decision 2009/908/EU. Janša argues the previously uncontroversial procedural law had been “voted on by people who have been dead for over 15 years,” understood to be a reference to Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker.
“So let’s walk down Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat, and persuade our weaker eurocrats to have the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our trading-bloc-cum-supranational-entity,” Janša told an angry crowd gathered by the flower stall on the Rond-Point Schumann.
One protestor, defiantly clad in a now-forbidden Slovenian presidency tie and holding a placard reading “Give us our GAC back,” told Berlaymonster he wanted to “Stop the [European Coal and] Steel [Community].”
Janša exhorted the crowd to show restraint as they sought to disrupt the small team of eurocrats who were at that very moment putting the finishing touches to the design of long-awaited but understatedly tasteful French presidency logo.
Soon after, they stormed the Justus Lipsius building, home to the EU’s most indifferent expressions of power. But the crowd’s fervour quickly dissipated as they vainly attempted to find the correct route to room JL.20.405(C)(bis), and they were last seen attempting to figure the right way out of a sort of oval vestibule that contained seven photocopiers and no signs.
Footage that has been widely shared online of a wild-looking man talking gibberish while daubed in blue and yellow facepaint was later revealed to be one of the less-well-known European Commissioners.
A team of top euro-diplomats is currently considering a package of measures that could discourage Janša from further violence, including offering him the Presidency of the Council of Europe and hoping he doesn’t notice.