| The Brussels job market is at the cusp of a ‘Suits’ moment, as the ever-poignant Franco-German-Belgian production ‘Parlement’ is about to begin its third season, lifting the lid on the inner, albeit fictional, workings of the EU bubble. Sometimes, pieces of popular media transform a generation’s view of a career or country. ‘Mad Men’ inspired a whole generation of would-be marketing professionals. ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ promised a tantalising experience in the health service industry. When it comes to working in Brussels, the hit–show Parlement, a cynical look at the inner workings of the EU’s opaque parliamentary assembly, is set to begin airing its third season at the end of October and may well be the EU’s very own “Suits”. While ‘Suits’ glorifies working in law – the show continues to dominate Netflix and has driven a welcome surge in interest in the legal profession, a phenomenon called the “Suits effect” – Parlement surgically lifts the layer on what goes into making the laws that affect 450 million Europeans. By holding the mirror up to the messy process of EU lawmaking and tying in characters that speak to people, Parlement does something no other piece of Brussels-produced media has done: make people want to be part of the shenanigans. How come? Because unlike other pieces of “gotcha” media, Parlement highlights the idiotic things that would turn any sane individual into a cynic within a year but also lays out the true beauty of European consensus building – meeting in committees rather than on the battlefield. | 