Book pays lip service to Justus

Date: 04/01/1996

A new book by senior Commission official Martin Westlake gives us the low down on the clumsily-named Justus Lipsius building which houses the Council of Ministers.

The place has been dubbed the Temple of Doom and the Albert Speer Memorial Centre by some insiders, but neither term appears in the tome The Council of the European Union.

Nor do the appellations “Just Lips” or “Hot Lips”, which have been uttered by disrespectful outsiders. Most Council officials, the book reveals, don't even honour Justus, the 16th century Flemish humanist, classical scholar and philosopher, even though the building bears his name thanks to the new Council Secretary-General Jürgen Trumpf. Instead, they simply use the Council's Latin name of Consilium.

Trumpf, incidentally, wrote the book's foreword. According to publishing sources, he requested just one tiny change to the manuscript, replacing the description of the building being clad in “pink marble” with the phrase “pink granite”.

The revised description is technically more accurate, but could Trumpf's sensitivity over such a small point have anything at all to do with the experience of a certain Jacques Attali?

Attali, you may recall, was the head of the EBRD, whose lavishly-marbled headquarters in London played a not inconsiderable part in his downfall.