Samy (Xavier Lacaille) always seems a bit idiotic, but he is a master at using the EU system to his advantage.
Photo: © france.tv, BeTV, WDR
The tutoring about Europe begins right from the first minute. A Chinese woman in Brussels – an interception expert by profession, as it turns out later – is given a quick explanation of the EU’s structures and mechanisms by her superior. European Parliament and Commission, Council meetings and European summits, red zone, committee of ambassadors, directorates general, backroom meetings: “This is democracy, a completely absurd system.”
The explanatory piece, not even two minutes long, is also standard in the fourth season of the award-winning Belgian-French-German series “Parliament,” which is about the career of the young Frenchman Samy in the European system. It’s legendary how a new parliamentary speaker is thought out (he must have “no power in the house and knows nothing about anything”) or how parliamentary assistant Torsten shows the newcomer Samy how to occupy top European positions with the help of a room-filling Rube Goldberg machine.
“This is democracy, a completely absurd system.”
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In the current fourth season, former parliamentary intern Samy, who started out with great ambitions in the environmental sector, has now climbed the career ladder and joined the EU Commission as a civil servant. And he’s making a big mistake there too. For example, when he – somewhat by chance – presented his idea of a European FBI for environmental crime to the press and sent official Brussels into a frenzy of activity in order to recapture the fantasy. Or when he seriously believes that he can bring this special topic to the panel of experts he leads. There, the trademark protection of halloumi cheese or the emphasis on marriage as a connection between a woman and a man seems much more important.
There are quite a few misunderstandings in the most recent ten episodes of “Parliament”. For example, when the French EU ambassador “assigns” a young employee to a German assistant in order to influence Berlin’s position (“What really matters is that the Germans like us”). At the arranged dinner, however, she constantly talks about her digestive problems – which the Frenchman takes as a metaphor for political positions.
As in the previous seasons since 2020, the well-known characters can once again be experienced: the career-hungry Frenchwoman Valentine, the somewhat devious British blogger Rose, Magda, the hard-working Polish journalist, the stubborn German MP Gesine Breschenschneider and her compatriot, the simple-minded President of Parliament Konrad Stracke ( the latter three are portrayed by the Germans Barbara Krzoska, Martina Eitner-Acheampong and Martin Brambach). By the way, the self-absorbed top EU politicians play themselves. For the first time, the series was filmed directly during a real council summit.
Despite the sometimes strong criticisms against the EU establishment, the producers of “Parliament” had no obstacles put in their way by the European institutions. On the contrary: Quite a few EU officials and journalists even appeared as extras or gave assistance, as Eitner-Acheampong said in a conversation at the start of the fourth season. And Brambach regretted to “nd” that he would have liked to have met the “real” President of Parliament, but that a meeting did not take place (although Roberta Metsola had seen some episodes, it was said). However, the film president freely admitted that he had learned a lot about the “EU system” and could now better understand some of the difficulties at the European level.
In any case, there was a lot of praise in the press for the “educational mission” of the series, and also for the fact that it is available in two languages. And some clichés are not that far-fetched, as the heads of the EU Commission and Parliament representations in Germany, Barbara Gessler and Georg Pfeifer, admitted during a panel discussion. However, “Parliament” excludes really explosive topics. Although the shift to the right in Europe is even mentioned marginally, questions such as migration and asylum policy are not found in the series.
Samy’s story has now been “told” in the fourth season, as producer Jan Diepers announced. But he hopes that the topic will be pursued further. The other actors also agreed. How did Brambach say so beautifully? »Europe is a question to which there is no answer. But we mustn’t give up looking for it.”
Available in the ARD media library