Office moves (part 649)

Commission staff on the move again.

No sooner had Entre Nous made barbed remarks about the European Commission’s plans to ship staff out to the Delta site in the Auderghem suburb of Brussels (2-8 February) than the Brussels regional government  let it be known that it no longer supported the idea. 

So it is with some trepidation that Entre Nous offers any comment on the announcement by the Commission’s Office for Infrastructure in Brussels (OIB) of office moves planned for 2012.

The directorate-general for regional policy is being moved out from beside the Beaulieu site, which might be an unpleasant surprise for staff in those regional government offices that had placed themselves handily close to the department’s current location – avenue De Tervuren. It means that the Commission staff can put into practice the urban regeneration that they are supposed to know in theory. Cynics might suggest that a department is vulnerable to such decisions when a director-general is retiring (Dirk Ahner stepped down on 1 January).

The competition department has a much smaller move, from rue Joseph II to the Madou tower, but it was only to be expected that the department’s head, Alexander Italianer, being a former deputy secretary-general of the Commission, could navigate such negotiations comfortably.

The OIB claims to have aimed at the “most efficient” reorganisation, creating the “least disturbance”. Despite its best efforts, expect a lot of whingeing about a loss of car-parking spaces.