Verhofstadt faces demands to cancel architect contest

Date: 05/12/02

By Martin Banks

BELGIAN Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has been urged to cancel a architectural competition to redesign the European quarter in Brussels after a Dutch company complained non-Belgian firms were being discriminated against.

Bids were put in by 22 companies for the competition, which aims to find the best way of integrating the city's EU institutions with their local communities.

There is now a shortlist of four firms - three Belgian and one Belgo-Spanish - with a winner expected to be announced early in the New Year. But one of the unsuccessful architects, Amsterdam-based Rem Koolhaas, has accused the Belgians of 'old-fashioned protectionism' to ensure the contract, worth €250,000, goes to a local firm.

Reinier de Graaf, who was in charge of the project for Koolhaas, said: 'We were told ours was one of the best bids but that it was being turned down because of what amounted to a legal technicality.

'There is absolutely no valid reason why our bid could not have gone forward.

The only explanation is that the Belgian government wanted to keep non-Belgians out.' Dutch Socialist MEP Michiel van Hulten has written to Verhofstadt asking him to organise a new contest.

He said: 'I am also asking the Commission to examine whether the contest was organised in keeping with EU rules on public procurement.'

Peter Morse, head of unit in Verhofstadt's office, dismissed the allegations.

'This sounds like old-fashioned sour grapes,' he said. 'The Koolhaas bid was excellent but it was rejected because the papers which were submitted were incomplete.'

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has been urged to cancel a architectural competition to redesign the European quarter in Brussels after a Dutch company complained non-Belgian firms were being discriminated against.