Berlaymont workers press asbestos claims

Date: 15/02/01

By John Shelley

STAFF who claim to have developed lung cancer or other asbestos-related illness after working in the European Commission's old headquarters are calling on Romano Prodi to see they get full compensation.

Officials who worked in the asbestos-ridden Berlaymont building in Brussels say the institution has ignored their suffering and they now want the president to intervene.

"The attitude is always totally against helping us," said Arnaldo Lucaccioni, head of the support group claiming compensation.

In a letter to Prodi, workers past and present accuse the institution of deliberately trying to scupper recognition of their illnesses.

The Commission has been running a programme to test for asbestos-related diseases in former Berlaymont workers since 1995. Of the 578 people examined during that time, 27 tested positive.

A Commission spokesman pointed out that of the six people who signed the letter, four had already received compensation.

"We are absolutely convinced that in no way have we hampered civil servants' efforts to get compensation - on the contrary we have done everything we can to actually help them," he said.

The Association of the Victims of Asbestos of the European Commission, AVACE, says about 70 people have developed asbestos-related illnesses after working in the Berlaymont building. The vast majority were stationed in the ill-fated east wing, which housed the Commission's Agriculture directorate-general from 1967 until 1991.

"At the end of the day it is Prodi who has to take the full responsibility for sorting this out," said Lucaccioni, who has himself had a half a lung removed because of asbestos poisoning and was one of the first employees to move into the Berlaymont.

"When we first arrived workers were simply putting asbestos on the walls, asbestos dust was piled up on the floor and on our shoes, it was like walking through moon dust," he said.

AVACE says around 15 current and former officials are still fighting the bureaucracy that is required in order to prove that their illnesses are related to their time in the Berlaymont.

Several have died of lung cancer without ever receiving a penny, says Lucaccioni, while others are still coming forward as the first signs of illness are only now beginning to develop.

The Berlaymont building, on Rue de la Loi, is currently being renovated and is due to be re-opened as the home of the Commission in 2003.