{"id":861661,"date":"2026-03-31T02:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/861661\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:47:12","slug":"eu-bodys-proposal-to-spend-e3-6m-on-conference-hall-slammed-by-staff-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/861661\/","title":{"rendered":"EU body\u2019s proposal to spend \u20ac3.6M on conference hall slammed by staff \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The size and features of the hub \u2014\u00a0the cost of which forms part of the \u20ac49 million \u2014\u00a0suggest it would be designed as a chamber to host the<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>institution\u2019s 329 members\u00a0for their plenary sessions, which are held up to six times a year.<\/p>\n<p>According to the documents, the hub would include booths for interpreters, VIP areas and press facilities. The documents say it would provide \u201cautonomy from European Parliament and European Commission buildings,\u201d as Committee of the Regions plenary sessions are currently held in the Parliament or in the Commission\u2019s Charlemagne building.<\/p>\n<p>Staff and unions say the plans have not been transparent enough. An official at an EU staff union, granted anonymity to speak freely, described the project as \u201cthis megalomaniac plan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Committee of the Regions press officer said leadership had prepared and shared details of the hub with the Commission for Financial and Administrative Affairs \u2014 which deals with admin and budgets at the Committee \u2014\u00a0and had discussed it with the staff committee on\u00a0March 25, the same day that POLITICO contacted the institution for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Renovation plans<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the Committee\u2019s leadership will decide whether to proceed with plans to demolish the two lower floors and the interior courtyard of the Bertha von Suttner building (named after the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize), which is located next to the European Parliament, as well as an adjoining building (Remorqueur, or REM).<\/p>\n<p>A report called Building Strategy suggests the space could generate revenue by being rented out to other EU institutions, at rates of up to \u20ac1,400 per half-day. Combined with estimated annual savings of \u20ac272,000 as there would no longer be a need to rent out other spaces,\u00a0total income and savings from the hub are projected to reach \u20ac15.47 million over 17 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The size and features of the hub \u2014\u00a0the cost of which forms part of the \u20ac49 million \u2014\u00a0suggest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[28,2000,219847,299,5187,5463],"class_list":["post-861661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-buildings","tag-eu","tag-eu-staff","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-renovation"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116321507494130686","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}