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Good morning, it's Tuesday, May 5 and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast.

The vibe in Brussels today is opaque with the news that political parties in the European

Parliament misspent 1.5 million euros during the 2024 EU election campaign.

Also on the pod, one of the EU's most senior officials, the Secretary General of the European

External Action Service, is on her way out.

And a Spanish MEP was outraged when he saw an octopus dish from his region being served

incorrectly in the European Parliament canteen.

I'm Zorochevto-Lovitch, and with me today is Ian Wishart, our senior EU politics editor. Ian, what's a British dish you'd get into a huff about? Oh, I don't know a dish, but maybe a cup of tea. When I see how Europeans make a cup of tea, I'm outraged actually. They don't boil the kettle properly. They put disgusting Belgian UHT milk in it. They leave the tea bag in for more than a

couple of minutes. It's utterly disgusting and I'm horrified. You're really liberally throwing

around the term disgusting again. Don't trust a non-British person to make a cup of tea.

I was told I couldn't use the word foreigner, so I'm not. Ian, that's how you get us cancelled.

Ian, the European Parliament's Department of Finance has found some political parties and

foundations have spent €1.5 million during the 2024 EU election campaign.

This is a story that our colleague Max Greer has got his hot little hands on.

And that money was not meant to be eligible

for EU funding because there were breaches of EU rules and breaches are things like using

...