Landlord asks Commission to quit

By Tim King

Date: 08/12/05

The European Commission has been asked to surrender one of its Brussels office buildings within three weeks and empty it of 1,500 staff.

The request was made by the landlord, the insurance company AXA Belgium, in the latest twist of negotiations over rents and a new lease.

The building, which is known as the JECL building because it is bounded by the avenue de la Joyeuse Entrée, avenue de Cortenbergh and rue de la Loi, has been home to Commission staff for more than 40 years. The Commission has been negotiating since 2001 with AXA to have the site redeveloped as offices and added a request in 2003 to include a conference centre, which would replace the Borschette building.

The plan has been to move the current occupants - 1,100 of whom are from the translation department - in the summer of 2006 to other Commission offices to allow demolition of the existing building.

The two sides had been negotiating both about the new development and about an extension to the existing lease, which had already been extended to the end of 2005. But apparently frustrated by a lack of progress, AXA wrote to the Commission last month to demand that it surrender the building by 31 December.

The Commission was unhappy with the level of rent being demanded, which it believed was not in keeping with the market rate in the European-quarter.

The Commission has told AXA it is still interested in the conference centre project but only on terms compatible with the current property market and the resources of the Commission.

Already under pressure from its translation staff, who are unhappy about the plan to move them to rue de Genève, the Commission is insisting that it will need six months to vacate the building.

The European Commission was asked to surrender one of its Brussels office buildings by 31 December 2005 and empty it of 1,500 staff.
The request was made by the landlord, the insurance company AXA Belgium, in the latest twist of negotiations over rents and a new lease.