EU sells half of office buildings as staff are happier to work at home

THE European Commission is selling half of its office buildings in Brussels as staff continue to work from home for much of the week post-pandemic.

Official guidance states that while “up to 20 per cent of teleworking [from home] is a right, between 20 per cent and 60 per cent of teleworking can be agreed with the line manager”.

Workers wanting even further workfrom-home hours “may be authorised when necessary in the interests of the service”.

Those rules were put in place in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, with Johannes Hahn, the European budget commissioner, describing European Commission officials teleworking for the majority of the week as the “new norm” at the time.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Hahn said that the sale to Belgium’s sovereign wealth fund would slash the Commission’s office footprint. He said: “The sale will help us achieve our objectives to reduce the number of buildings by 50 per cent and our surface by 25 per cent.”

The sale will only cut its overall office space from 780,000 to 580,000 square metres, as the EU’S Brussels-based executive is keeping the more spacious office blocks. The move is expected to raise €900 million (£769 million).

The commission employs some 32,000 people, according to its website.

Other rules afforded to commission officials allow them to work from overseas for at least 10 days a year, essentially allowing them to extend their holidays abroad. Highly paid eurocrats are also given extra breaks on top of their 54 days of holiday entitlement.

Officials who are paid more than €10,000 a month are not allowed to claim overtime when they work more than 37.5 hours a week, so are given extra days off.

The sales of its buildings will also help the commission hit its own net zero goals by occupying fewer but more energy-efficient buildings.

The sale will be used by the Belgian government to make Brussels’ sterile European quarter more attractive to visitors, by doing away with glass and steel office blocks.

It promised “relaxing public spaces with more vegetation and more space for active mobility” to boost its cultural attractiveness.

A joint statement recently published by the commission and the Belgian government said that plans have been made for an area where “office buildings co-exist harmoniously with dwellings, retail and leisure”.