Juggling EU and Belgian interests

Date: 07/03/1996

By Rory Watson

BELGIAN ministers whose responsibilities bring them into contact with the EU are invariably caught between a rock and a hard place.

To avoid being squeezed, they must reconcile international obligations with an increasingly strained national budget.

The man now performing this delicate juggling act is André Flahaut, minister for public service, who is responsible for two of the most contentious points on the frontier between the Union and Belgium: the Berlaymont and European schools.

Flahaut acknowledges the difficulty of accommodating his two constituencies, saying: “You should not neglect the fact that there are some people in our population who do not understand why we are doing certain things for the Union. There are also some in EU institutions who fail to acknowledge what Belgium is doing for those very institutions.”

As if to underline his exposed position on the front line, Flahaut has a bird's eye view of the European Commission's former Berlaymont headquarters, now draped forlornly in white cladding, across the road from his office.

The Belgian minister is having more success in resolving the long-running saga over the Berlaymont than he is in settling the row over the two overcrowded schools for the children of EU officials.

The dangerous asbestos is now being stripped out of the 13-floor star-shaped building and transported in sealed containers to be buried on the outskirts of Antwerp. The work is due to be completed by the end of the year and the building reopened in January 2000.

Flahaut is committed to bringing a new degree of transparency to the project, informing local inhabitants and future users about what is planned. But one question remains unanswered - what rent will the Commission pay for the Belgian-owned premises?

“We still have to work out the future rent. A lot of elements are involved, such as prices paid elsewhere in the area. It will be a political rent, not an economic one,” says Flahaut. But he rejects suggestions of a symbolic, nominal price such as that charged by the French and Swiss governments for buildings occupied by prestigious international organisations.

The minister acknowledges the benefits which the EU's presence brings to Belgium, but insists the financial contribution the state makes to the Union should not be underestimated.

He points to the 62-million-ecu bill it is shouldering for the removal of asbestos on top of the 284 million ecu involved in the Berlaymont's refurbishment. To this he adds the 39 million ecu Belgium pays in rent for offices pressed into service for the Commission when it left its former headquarters.

While there is light at the end of the Berlaymont tunnel, the outlook is distinctly less optimistic for the future of the European schools, where Belgium has a specific responsibility to provide suitable premises and facilities for the education of EU officials' children.

Both Brussels' schools now have severe over-crowding problems. Any solution will involve not just finance, but also approval from a complex amalgam of federal, regional and communal authorities.

Flahaut insists that the answers must be found within the borders of Brussels' 19 bilingual communes. To stray outside that area, he believes, would stir up political and linguistic friction.

He is adamant that, in the short term, the most feasible answer is to convert a now empty Brussels school at Berkendael, near a prison, into extra premises for the European schools. The idea has been consistently rejected by parents as unsuitable.

But Flahaut insists no other options exist, given budget constraints and the need to find extra premises as soon as possible. Purchase of the school, surrounding land and refurbishment would cost the government almost 7.7 million ecu.

“I hope people will not say no immediately. If it is not Berkendael, then frankly I do not have any other suggestions,” he stresses.

Argument is also raging over the planned third European school on Brussels' ULB campus. The Commission has accused the Belgian government of not respecting EU public procurement rules. Flahaut denies the charges and retorts that all 29 EU-based companies who expressed an interest are being considered for the contracts.

That procedure, he argues, introduced a keen element of competition and has led to 5.2 million ecu being knocked off the estimated 44-million-ecu cost of the third school. He warns that any attempt to restart the procedure could sound the death knell for the third school.

“I had a budget in 1995 to start the project, but I do not have one this year.

If I had to start it again, there would be no European school. I am severely constrained by my budget, particularly at a time when our schools are going through a very difficult period,” he warns.

How successful the Belgian minister will be in defusing the simmering time bomb over the European schools will only become clear during his first direct debate with their governing body in Brussels on 18 March.