A tourist talking to a local in Brussels:

- Little boy, does it always rain in your country?

- I don’t know, sir, I’m only eleven.

This joke tells a lot about the weather in Belgium. Perhaps it doesn’t rain that much in this country, but the weather here is often gray, cloudy, gloomy, sunless. Yes, we often have BAD weather in Brussels, dude. Foolish Europhiles that we are, we’re waiting for a directive that would change this. No decisions or recommendations, please, these are for pussies. We want a weather directive fixing once and for all the good weather in Belgium (or at least in Brussels!). A regulation would actually also do it.

It reminds me of a news item I’d read about two years ago. It was about an announcement in the Polish parliament. The thing was read to the Polish MP’s and stated that parliamentarians were welcome to attend a special Mass where they would pray for rain (in was a period of drought in Poland).

I don’t know if the attendance was high and whether the initiative was bore any fruit but we definitely should use this method in Brussels.  Let’s send a solemn letter to the European Parliament, the Commission and all the other Brussels-based EU institution asking their workers to make a break, gather for an hour on the Place Robert Schuman and join their spiritual forces in an effort to bring some sun to our beloved city. (No doubt Barroso and Fischer Boel will be the best candidates to preside the shamanic rituals.) The EC complains that people don’t realise how Europe influences their daily life. Just get us some sun and you’ll see Eurobarometer indicators skyrocketing!

Here’s the clip with the communiqué about the Mass for rain: