Commission office changes

The European Commission’s directorate-general for the internal market is leaving the Brussels building in which toxic mould was found earlier this year.

Staff had to be evacuated in April from Avenue de Cortenbergh 100 while the office block was decontaminated. Some were temporarily rehoused in the department’s other building across the road at 107. But the whole department is moving to Rue de Spa early next year. Staff will vacate Cortenbergh 100 by the end of the year and staff from 107 will follow.

• The demolition work continues further down Avenue de Cortenbergh, closer to the Rond-Point Schuman, of the offices formerly occupied by the Commission’s translation services. The building, on the triangle bounded by Avenue de la Joyeuse Entrée, Cortenbergh and Rue de la Loi (JECL), is owned by Axa. The Commission had been negotiating for the construction of new offices and a conference centre, but talks broke down. European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas confirmed yesterday (11 October) that that was still the case. The price demanded, he said, had been too high.

• The Commission has though acquired a new building at its Beaulieu site, on the eastern edge of Brussels, which will, it said, permit the regrouping on one site of its department for the information society and media. The informatics department is to be rehoused in Rue Bélliard.

Renovation work on the building that houses DG Agriculture, on Rue de la Loi, is to begin before the end of the year.

The European Commission’s directorate-general for the internal market is leaving the Brussels building in which toxic mould was found earlier this year.