Internal market staff left homeless after toxic find

By Simon Taylor

Date: 13/04/06

The 250 staff evacuated from a European Commission office following the discovery of potentially carcinogenic spores may never return to the building, according to Commission sources.

On Friday last week (7 April), officials working at one of the internal market department's two main offices at Avenue de Cortenbergh 100, near the central EU district, were given one hour's notice to leave the building following the discovery of moulds containing a toxin which can cause cancer.

Staff had been complaining since the second half of last year about high levels of health problems such as colds and sore throats.

Tests were carried out in February this year which led to the discovery of aspergillus moulds containing the toxin sterigmatocystine. The World Health Organisation says this substance can be carcinogenic in certain circumstances.

Administrative Affairs Commissioner Siim Kallas said: "I am not prepared to accept a possible risk to the health of our staff."

The Commission has offered medical checks to all staff, a health advice hotline and a dedicated email box for questions and queries. So far 20 officials have contacted the hotline and five have asked for tests.

Temporary offices are being found for around 50 senior management and support staff in the other internal market build- ing across the street at number 107.

But the internal market directorate-general was planning to leave the contaminated building at the end of the year in any event. One of the options being considered is to rehouse the officials temporarily in the new Tour Madou building due to be opened next week.

Initially, officials from the Commission's communications and education and culture directorates were to move into the building but this plan may be delayed or cancelled altogether for one of the departments.

A Commission official said it would be very difficult to move internal-market staff back into the contaminated building for "morale reasons" even if results of tests to see if the spores had got into the air were negative.

The moulds were found in underfloor compartments for computer cabling which had been filled with water because of structural problems with the building. The Commission is considering whether to withhold rent from the German property company which owns the building, Deka Immobilien Investment, for the second half of this year. It has already paid rent for the first six months.

Markus Rosenberg, a press spokesman for the company which owns the building, said that it had been surprised at the Commission's decision to evacuate the office as this had not been recommended in a recent independent report into the state of the office. He said that Deka had offered to take interim measures before the end of the week but that the Commission had decided to clear the building anyway. Rosenberg said that it understood that the decision was taken as a matter of precaution and not with regard to any actual risk.

Deka was in contact with the Commission and both parties were working together to assess the situation. "We have done everything to accommodate the client," he said.

In 1991 3,000 officials were forced to move out of the Commission's Berlaymont headquarters building after asbestos was discovered in the ceilings and walls. The building was finally reopened in 2004 after numerous cost overruns and delays in completing building work.

Update on the discovery of aspergillus moulds containing the toxin sterigmatocystine in a European Commission office in February 2006.

• Primary Source