To your boxes! We are moving
(BRUSSELS2) That's it! The European diplomatic service has started to pack its boxes to move into "its" new headquarters. Even better, some have already arrived in the new building, The Capitals, located at the top of rue de la Loi, a stone's throw from Parc du Cinquantenaire.
The first to arrive are the services managing the instruments of foreign policy (FPI) - instrument of stability, public diplomacy, budget, finance - which are placed under the authority of Me Ashton but remain statutorily linked to the Commission. A necessity. The lease of the building where the REIT was located ended on December 30, it was necessary to move anyway. The other services should follow in January. The move will be done service by service and should take several months. The time that all the development and finishing work that is still in progress in the new building is completed.
A milestone for the service
“Being all together in the same building is definitely going to be important” explains a senior EEAS official, who makes the comparison with what happens in a merger of companies. "We are engaged in a long-term process. It will take time. But being all together will definitely make things easier.". Currently, the services are thus located in 8 different places, sometimes with different computer networks and varying constraints. This does not facilitate difficult communication.
Even the color of the furniture...
This move was closely monitored in the Office of the High Representative. For several months that the preparation has lasted, the plans have been revised many times to take into account different constraints: number of people in the service, organization of the services vertically or horizontally (this is important :-), circulation of information, moods of each other... without forgetting the opinion of the High Representative. Between two trips and two ministerial meetings, Catherine Ashton has, in fact, paid attention to the location of the various offices, the color of the walls, the carpets, the furniture that will fit out the new interior. Primordial...
The High Representative will in fact have an office on the 6th floor of the building which will become a new symbol of European power like the 13th floor of the Commission with the office of José-Manuel Barroso. This is where the members of the diplomatic service "board" will sit. But the High Representative will keep an office at the European Commission, where her cabinet and her spokespersons will continue to work, double hats oblige.
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