Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
The investment arm of the Belgian government wants to take over 23 old buildings of the European Commission in Brussels, according to local newspapers and the Belgian Press Agency, according to sources involved in the talks.
According to the sources, which they denied, the Belgian government and the European Commission have been negotiating for several months over a real estate deal worth about one billion euros.
The commission wants to get rid of most of the buildings it owns, which represent 350,000 square meters of office space in prime locations in the Leopold district of the capital.
And since a deal is in the works between the European institution and its host country, the Commission does not have to organize a public tender. However, the private sector will also play a role in the deal. The Belgian government's Federal Holding and Investment Company (SFPI-FPIM) will buy the buildings, but plans to renovate them together with the property developers. This will allow Belgium to recover part of the estimated purchase price.
The sale should help the Commission achieve its ambitious environmental goals. It announced in 2021 that it would relinquish half of its 50 office buildings in Brussels by 2030, with the remaining offices greened. Newspapers are likely to indicate that UNHCR will rent offices in some of the renovated buildings. Neither party commented, the Belgian authority concerned with the matter, SFPI-FPIM, or the European Commission, which is the executive body of the unified European bloc, which is located in the Schumann district of Brussels.