Committee on Budgets Ordinary meeting
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BUDG European Parliament
Follow its sittingsFrancisco Fini
The modernization, security, sale and purchase. Another priority, structural priority, I would say those priority are all structural because I think I'm referring to them regularly when I am in front of this committee, is the colocation. Colocation is a structural policy, sub-policy in this management of the real estate. It's not just a matter of making the best use of space, but also to increase visibility and coherence and consistence of the EU projection in the world. It's a way also to give a practical translation to the Team Europe approach.
So it is a policy that has been substantially developed in the last years and we have now reached 144 colocation, 44 with member states and 100 with other EU partners. Basically 10% of the office space is in colocation and half of the delegations are concerned by colocation, be it with EU partners or member states. Finally, I would also like to refer to the greening aspects of this real estate policy. It is an absolute priority. This year the EEAS has been finally certified EMAS here in HQ and we are also translating this in the delegation with environmental management systems for all our delegations.
And this is a criteria which is used and very important and very prominent when selecting new building and new refurbishment. So as you may see and as you rightly pointed out in your introduction, Mr. Chair, a very diverse portfolio with substantial challenges that we manage, I would say greatly thanks to this priority and planning exercise which allows us to make best use of the limited resources that we have, human and financial, in order to provide the infrastructure and backbone for the EU External Action Service here in Brussels and in our delegations. Thank you very much and I stand obviously ready to answer questions you may have. Thank you.
Johan Van Overtveldt
Thank you, Mr. Finney. We immediately go to our standing rapporteur, Mr. Olivier Chastel, please.
Olivier Chastel
Merci Monsieur le Président, Monsieur Finney, chers collègues, je veux d'abord remercier Monsieur Finney pour les documents envoyés, les réponses fournies à nos questions écrites, son exposé introductif aujourd'hui qui ma foi est révélateur en matière de défis puisque Monsieur Finney vient de nous les expliquer.
Il s'attache effectivement à moderniser le réseau, à améliorer la sécurité, à avoir une gestion active pour la maîtrise des biens immobiliers, à avoir une approche Team Europe au travers de la colocation et enfin verdir le parc immobilier. Je pense que c'est un vaste programme assez ambitieux au regard du nombre de biens immobiliers en portefeuille. Alors on a souvent eu l'occasion de débattre d'un certain nombre de dossiers bien spécifiques du portefeuille immobilier de l'EAS. J'ai quelques questions complémentaires à poser en plus des questions que j'avais transmises par écrit. D'abord par rapport à la sécurisation.
L'an dernier on avait évoqué une liste non divulguée de bâtiments ne répondant pas à 100 % aux standards de sécurité. Est-ce que globalement cette liste s'est réduite ? Est-ce que le nombre notamment de bâtiments non conformes a diminué ? Alors on a récemment vu une évolution du contexte géopolitique, je parle de l'Ukraine, du Moyen-Orient. J'aimerais savoir comment ça a impacté un certain nombre de nos délégations toujours en matière de sécurité.
Est-ce que vous savez nous rappeler quel est le coût annuel de ces adaptations en matière de sécurité ? Comment finalement est-ce que vous organisez la répartition des investissements en matière de sécurité ? On sait qu'on ne sait pas tout faire en une fois, vous venez d'ailleurs de le répéter. Comment est-ce que le service décide de ce qui est fait pour les prochaines années ? Ouais, je voudrais aussi revenir sur un élément qui peut paraître anecdotique et je sais qu'en la matière vous ne faites qu'appliquer les décisions, mais l'EAS a décidé de renforcer sa mission diplomatique à Fidji et à la Barbade.
J'aurais voulu savoir quel était le coût de ces missions diplomatiques dites stratégiques et de quel ordre est le renforcement. Dernier élément, c'est la colocation. 144 accords de colocation. J'aurais voulu savoir comment peut-on encore aller plus loin ? Qu'est-ce qui est en préparation ?
Est-ce que c'est des colocations avec des partages de locaux ou également de partage de services comme le gardiennage, les services de nettoyage ? Comment est-ce qu'on intègre ça dans les perspectives de futures acquisitions ? Merci beaucoup.
Nils Ušakovs
Yeah, thank you chair. Two questions if I may. Given that the reconfiguration of the EU delegation network requires on one hand moving diplomatic presence delegations into smaller properties and on the second hand reinforced delegations into larger ones, what specific legal and financial safeguards are in place to mitigate the budget impact of negotiating early lease terminations and specifically how will the EAS prevent duplicate rental expenditures or steep reinstatement penalties during the parallel process of securing new premises before existing leases expire? And the second question is, report highlights a stark resource deficit noting the real estate safety and greening division employees only 12 architects to manage 325 buildings worldwide, resulting in overall capability that is explicitly, and I will quote, not in line with the needs for building projects worldwide. And considering this bottleneck, how does the EAS intend to effectively execute its extensive pipeline which includes selling 14 properties by mid-2027 and managing dozens of ongoing renovations, purchases and market prospections without incurring project delays, cost overruns or critical failures in its duty of care?
Thank you.
Francisco Fini
Oui. Merci Monsieur le Président.
Donc pour commencer avec les questions de Monsieur le rapporteur, Monsieur Chastel, sur la sécurisation. Donc oui, je dirais que nous avons une liste relativement longue de délégations non pleinement conformes en termes de sécurité à des degrés divers. C'est pour ça que ces projets de mise en conformité concernent parfois des mises à jour ou des installations complètes. Et ceci me permet aussi de clarifier la question du coût. Une mise à jour, c'est environ 500 000 euros.
Une installation complète tourne autour d'un million deux. C'est pour cela qu'en plus des contraintes de personnel qui viennent d'être évoquées, nous ne pouvons pas faire plus que sept à huit mises à jour, je dirais, par an parce qu'il y a aussi une tournante. Nous avons un stock et un flux. Donc le stock, on le met à jour à un rythme de, je dirais, de huit à dix maximum, mais chaque année, il y en a d'autres qui doivent être mises à jour. Donc moi, je suis confiant que d'ici quatre, cinq ans, le portefeuille pourra être parfaitement sécurisé et de là, nous rentrerons dans de la maintenance.
Mais donc c'est, je dirais, le rythme de mise à jour possible. Les contraintes étant d'ordre financier, vous voyez qu'avec 15 millions d'ajouts, on peut faire une dizaine de projets de d'ampleur différente, mais c'est aussi le nombre d'architectes et de spécialistes en sécurité. In order to address the human resource constraints, as I explained, we really focus on priority. So we define together with Field Security Division, which is the division in charge of threat assessment, we define really the order of priority for security projects and in order to start with the most pressing ones. And as far as internal reorganization is concerned, I have devoted two additional colleagues specifically to security projects at the detriment of other other domains, but we think that the duty of care, the security of colleagues, especially in certain circumstances, it's a priority.
So priority and reallocation of human resources to really speed up the process of updating the security. Fidji et Barbade. Oui, disons que la Commission a estimé que ces deux délégations devaient devenir délégations renforcées pour servir les délégations environnantes. Le renforcement de Fidji et de la Barbade se fait avec les ressources transférées par des délégations voisines. Donc non pas avec des créations de nouveaux de nouveaux postes, mais avec les ressources des neighboring delegations.
En termes d'infrastructure, puisque ceci est la question qui nous occupe aujourd'hui, nous avons pu accommoder les collègues faisant l'objet de ces redéploiements dans les immeubles existants avec des projets de réajustement interne. Donc sans nouvelles relocalisations, ce qui permet aussi d'avoir une gestion un peu plus plus efficace de l'espace.
La colocation, la colocation est absolument, comme je l'ai dit, prioritaire. C'est-à-dire qu'à chaque nouveau projet immobilier, nous lançons une demande auprès de toutes les institutions et auprès de tous les États membres pour savoir s'il y a un intérêt. Donc avant même d'aller sur le marché avec une prospection de marché pour définir les besoins et les surfaces, nous au préalable nous procédons à cette enquête auprès des États membres et des institutions de façon à déjà pouvoir intégrer à ce moment-là les demandes de colocation qui pourraient survenir. Et l'accord de colocation, naturellement le service ne fait pas de bénéfice sur ces accords de colocation. C'est une rétrocession de frais, que ce soit de loyer et un quota proportionnel à la superficie utilisée de tous les frais.
Donc gardiennage, électricité, utilities et tout ça. Donc mais sans profit. Mais cela permet naturellement une entrée, disons que probablement la colocation est la seule source de revenu hors budget du service. And so to address the question of the scaling down of certain delegations and the moving from the current delegations to diplomatic presence, all our lease contracts have an early termination clause, usually of three months. So and when we initiate the new projects, we time the termination clause in order to have almost a simultaneous termination and entry in new building.
So we really try to limit maximum the overlap to one month. So we do not activate the clause, the early termination clause as long as we are not almost certain of entering the new building within a reasonable time. So we really aim for maximum one month overlap. And we do not accept contracts without this possibility of the early termination clause precisely because of that. Thank you very much.
Olivier Chastel
Monsieur le Président, je veux évidemment ici au nom des collègues, j'allais dire des collègues, mais ah oui on est quand même trois avec vous, c'est vrai, des collègues présents remercier Monsieur Finni et ses services pour l'exercice parce qu'au-delà des questions écrites, de son exposé, des réponses aux questions, on maîtrise à chaque fois un peu mieux les défis devant lesquels son service est placé.
Johan Van Overtveldt
Thank you for the colleagues and certainly also for Mr. Finni for his presentation and further explanation. We take a few minutes break because one of the speakers for the next item has not yet arrived. Thank you.
Monika Hohlmeier
So, dear colleagues, let's start with agenda point 26, the exchange of views on institutions' building policy of the European Commission. Our rapporteur is Olivier Chastel. This exchange of views is a very good opportunity to better understand the Commission's real estate policy and the main projects ahead. I therefore would firstly like to give the floor to Mr. Guy Drouad, head of service of the Office of Infrastructure and Logistics, OIL, in Luxembourg, to present the Commission's building policy. Now I change that, and I have the impression because I see arriving Mr. Morten Fjalland, welcome.
He is head of service for the Office of Infrastructure and Logistics in Brussels, OIB, to present the Commission's building policy in Brussels, and to Mr. Dan Chirondojan, director for operations and support management at the Joint Research Centre, JRC, to present the Commission's policy as regards the buildings of its in-house research service. Is it too early, Mr. Fjalland, or...?
Monika Hohlmeier
Then we start with OIB. You have the floor for eight minutes. Thank you very much.
Morten Fjalland
Thank you very much, honorable Chair. Thank you very much, honorable members. Thank you for inviting both me and colleagues, and in respect of time for colleagues coming after me, I will do all my best to stick to the eight minutes, even if the agenda that we are currently dealing with is a large and we think quite interesting one. And that's the right note, members, to thank you all for the questions that we got in advance, which we have filed with replies, but we'll be happy to go into any discussion on. I'm pleased to inform you overall that we are on track.
We remain on the right track to meet our objectives set out in our 2021 real estate strategy, and that is to reduce the areas occupied by the Commission to 580,000 square meters by the end of 2030. This means a 25% decrease compared to 2019. We're pursuing also our objective to make sure that each square meter is greener. We're on the right track here to achieve a 30% reduction of our emissions in 2030, and that's again compared to the 2019 levels. Without going into too much detail, but this is an interesting area.
How do we do this? We're choosing to occupy fewer and more efficient and lower energy buildings whenever available, and also giving up older, high-consumption buildings. We are gradually starting to look at renovating existing building stock which is still with us. For instance, we are currently at work in the Charlemagne building, one of the key owned buildings by the Commission in our portfolio, and this is with a view to ensure that some needed works will be done while at the same time allowing to increase the workstations in the building. We're also ensuring that sustainable energy sources are used whenever feasible, and we are also here upgrading installations.
One of the key examples is the purchase of significant solar panel systems in the Brussels Capital Region that provide electricity to both Berlaymont and Charlemagne. Also, we're replacing gas heaters with heat pumps running on green electricity. We are reducing electricity, gas, water consumption through staff awareness and dedicated actions. We're also seeking to support as far as at all possible greener commuting. We are paying close attention to public transport access when selecting buildings.
We are looking to implement facilities for staff to make sure that they can more easily commute by bike or other non-car use. And that also means we're reducing the gradually the availability of car parking spaces in Commission buildings by 2030, and that would be by at least 35% compared to 2019, and this is in line again with the Brussels regulations. We're also using office space in a smarter way. And this we're doing by rolling out what we call dynamic collaborative space. And the purpose, one of the purposes of this is simply overall to then need less space.
Inside the space that we have, we're designing that space to ways that it fits the way that people actually work, different zones for different tasks. There's a lot of details on this, but also as part of this, it's about the space we need, but also cutting costs and energy use by needing less space. We have also converted and we will continue to convert existing buildings, either fully or partially, into this collaborative space. This is the case currently and in particular for the Berlaymont and the Charlemagne.
Continuing this trend going forward, so now more than 11,000 staff are using this dynamic collaborative space setting overall taking up less space for the purpose overall, of course also with a budgetary effect. Figures from the staff satisfaction surveys show a really good, greater appreciation over time of the benefits of DCS over the years, dynamic collaborative space again. On the issue of having sold 23 of our buildings in 2024, we have been of course been active for the Commission in the prospection and the replacement of office buildings. As examples, and there's more on this in our various budgetary documents, as an example we have in 2024-25 started to rent new buildings, for instance Intervueren 211 on the outskirts of our prospection zone and also at Montoyer 34. The situation however is somewhat complex.
The current offer of available big office buildings in the European quarter which meet our criteria is limiting the options. So we're looking for environmentally friendly buildings and adequate office space at competitive costs. We've chosen to activate the option to stay longer in some of the sold buildings in order to make sure that we can optimize our portfolio at this given moment. And I would like to thank you, Chairman, for the files passed also this morning for extension of certain of certain contracts on this part. This is this we will need to continue as a strategy to go on to make sure that we continue to prospect in the best possible way and at the best possible outcome for public monies.
To be more flexible, and this is in the same vein, we are slightly extending, and this we have done already, our current prospection zone in the European quarter and around the axis between Arts-Loi and Montgomery and to the southwest corner of this axis and also to a limited extent in the northern quarter towards the inner city. The Commission already occupies a building in the northern quarter, namely SB 34 in internal lingo, Simon Bolivar 34, housing three executive agencies and with the plans still on for gathering all executive agencies. Regarding non-office spaces, the works of the new conference center started end of September 2024. The delivery is foreseen in 2028. Finally, with respect to budget forecasts, the utilization of sales revenue has firstly allowed to cover the payment of residual debts associated with the buildings sold.
Also it has been used for the purpose of extended use of certain buildings and as a result the Commission then has more flexibility on the exit date of these buildings. Secondly, it allows to acquire the new conference center and this will become Commission's property. And thirdly, it has financed and will continue to finance the occupation of new buildings as well as some refurbishments. In closing, I would like to emphasize that we are committed to delivering sustainable, modern and accessible buildings to contribute to greening the Commission, creating even more attractive workplaces for our staff, but also looking with very much care continuously at the best use of public money for the purpose. There were several members asking questions to us ahead of this, we'll be happy to go into detail in any of those coming back, but I think the only thing I would like to say here and to thank you for, members, is that it shows the interest in our work and it shows also us that we can be happy in you having this interest and this support for our work going forward.
Monika Hohlmeier
So, thank you very much. I now would like to give the floor to Guy Drowert. I can repeat the name, it's still Guy Drowert, Head of Service of OIL. As quick as your building.
Guy Drowart
Madame la Présidente, mesdames et messieurs les membres du Parlement européen. Donc, je vais exposer ici quelques principes de la stratégie immobilière de la Commission à Luxembourg. Le premier principe est une utilisation plus intelligente des surfaces. Donc, il vise à remplacer les aménagements de bureaux traditionnels basés par des espaces basés sur l'activité et des environnements dynamiques non attribués. Le résultat sera une réduction brute de surface totale de 164 000 mètres carrés, qui est le chiffre de 2020, à moins de 122 000 mètres carrés d'ici 2030, ce qui représente une réduction de 25 %.
Il y a également, nous visons à utiliser plus les espaces collaboratifs dynamiques. Donc, c'est un élément central. On va travailler, on travaille déjà avec un ratio de 7 postes pour 10 membres du personnel, en soutenant l'objectif d'environ 60 % du personnel travaillant en DCS ou en bureaux non attribués d'ici fin 2026. Nous sommes déjà proches de ce chiffre puisque nous avons déjà 2 300 collègues sur 4 000, c'est-à-dire 57 %, qui sont déjà soit en non attribué, soit en Dynamic Collaborative Space. Nous visons également un verdissement de la Commission qui est lié évidemment aux initiatives de la Commission et à l'initiative du nouveau Bauhaus européen, de façon à avoir des bâtiments qui soient durables, inclusifs et esthétiquement agréables avec les meilleures normes énergétiques et en termes d'accessibilité.
Un des points essentiels, la consolidation et la localisation. Le bâtiment Jean Monnet, et nous avons présenté le malheureusement le décalage dans le temps il y a il y a deux semaines. Donc, le Jean Monnet permettra de regrouper l'essentiel des directions générales qui sont éparpillées pour l'instant sur le site de Luxembourg et le Kirchberg deviendra le site principal. Enfin, et donc c'est un des éléments du dossier du Jean Monnet, les surfaces excédentaires liées à l'évi l'évolution de l'utilisation de l'espace seront louées à la Banque européenne d'investissement dans le cadre d'un accord de service à conclure dans le futur. Pour la mise en œuvre, et bien bien entendu l'achèvement du Jean Monnet 2 constitue une étape phare.
Et donc la plupart des directions générales de qui sont sur le site de Luxembourg seront accueillies dans cet immeuble, bien entendu sur base d'une conception en Dynamic Collaborative Space, DCS. La livraison est donc prévue pour mai 2028. En ce qui concerne le déploiement, et bien en fait un certain nombre de projets pilotes avaient permis déjà de de travailler sur cette optique, mais malheureusement nous avons dû libérer anticipativement un certain nombre de bâtiments suite à la pression des propriétaires et de cette manière nous avons pu non seulement réduire la surface utilisée, mais également nous avons pu mettre les collègues en Dynamic Collaborative Space. En ce qui concerne le ratio propriété ou location, aujourd'hui nous louons l'essentiel de nos bureaux à Luxembourg, sauf l'Euroforum, donc qui est détenu sous une emphytéose pour laquelle nous pouvons exercer une option d'achat. Donc l'emphytéose court jusque 2034 et nous avons des prolongations de contrats de location en cours de manière à couvrir le la période jusqu'à la livraison du Jean Monnet 2.
D'ailleurs nous avons fait une information à l'autorité budgétaire récemment et nous présenterons le dossier pour pour accord dans le courant du mois de septembre. Un certain nombre de dossiers continuent à être à l'étude, l'avenir de cet Euroforum dans le futur et de la parcelle numéro 3, donc là où se trouvent les baraques de chantier en face du Jean Monnet. Un des points essentiels, c'est l'accessibilité et l'inclusion, donc pour être conforme à la stratégie de la Commission et également aux normes qui sont applicables au Luxembourg. Donc dans l'ensemble la politique immobilière combine l'optimisation des espaces, la durabilité, la consolidation des directions générales et l'utilisation straté stratégique des capacités disponibles.
Dan Chirondojan
Thank you very much, Madam President, honorable members of the Parliament. I would like to on behalf of JRC to mention three points about the building policy in Joint Research Centre. The first point is about the role of the JRC. JRC is the in-house scientific service of the Commission, providing science for policy, and the JRC scientific mandate is to generate and validate scientific evidence in support to EU policies. This is why the JRC buildings are research infrastructure, not conventional office buildings.
JRC is managing in a holistic way a complex ecosystem of infrastructure, scientific infrastructure, which are the laboratory, testing and installation, nuclear facilities, the enabling infrastructure, which is the energy empowering, heating, cooling, water, chemical supply, roads, telecommunication, security, health and safety environment, and conventional infrastructure, which are the offices and the conference center. Only 23% of our space is standard office or administration, while 77% is dedicated research infrastructure. In all our five sites in Geel, Petten, Ispra, Karlsruhe and Seville, JRC is managing 251 hectares of land and 308 buildings with a total surface area of some 378,000 square meters. The second point that I want to mention is about the revision of the methodology for JRC building data. Last year, JRC implemented a comprehensive revision of its measurement of build surfaces methodology to accurately reflect the unique nature of our research infrastructure, previously underrepresented in the report.
This revision, based on the OIB building code, ensures that data now fully aligns with the JRC scientific mission. What is important to mention is that these adjustments do not impact the financial declaration of assets to DG BUDG as they reflect a correction of scope, not a change in asset value. And the third point that I would want to mention is about the JRC approach for investment in infrastructure. And I want to mention here that last year in September 2025, the European Commission adopted a new long-term strategy on research and technology infrastructure. In this context, JRC developed its own strategy for research infrastructure, setting out a holistic approach to strengthen all the JRC ecosystem, ensuring that infrastructure remain world-class, more accessible, better aligned with the need of scientists, innovator and industry.
There are four pillars of the strategy for JRC research infrastructure. The pillar one refers to the integration with the work program of the JRC and internal ecosystem, and this means that the investment in the JRC infrastructure are aligned with the scientific priorities, but also with the safety and security requirements, sustainability and environmental performance, cost-effectiveness and value for money.
The second pillar is about the integration of our infrastructure, JRC infrastructure in the European landscape of research infrastructure, and here we work together with ESFRI, which is the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure, a strategic body created by the European Union to support the coordination at European level. Pillar number three, it's about developing a new approach for accessing JRC research infrastructure, and here I can tell you that our laboratories, nuclear and non-nuclear, are available to external users in the EU member states and the countries associated to Horizon Europe, and since 2017, we implemented more than 300 projects. And the fourth and the last pillar is about ensuring the sustainability of JRC research infrastructure, which is implementation of energy efficiency measures and reducing the running cost, and here I can give you some examples. In 2025, the savings compared to the 2019 baseline, electricity below 10% of 2019 level, gas consumption 40% below, and the total energy consumption below 30%. This was also mirrored by a significant decrease in CO2 emissions.
The total emissions fell from about 30,000 tons of CO2 in 2019 to about 15,000 tons in 2025, meaning 46%. Thank you very much.
Monika Hohlmeier
So, thank you very much for your presentations. Now, we have our rapporteur, Théo Olivier, you have the floor.
Olivier Chastel
Merci Madame la Présidente, chers collègues, à mon tour de remercier les services de la Commission, les directions qui nous ont fait leur exposé, le document de départ, le working document qui était très complet, ainsi d'ailleurs que les réponses aux différentes questions écrites que nous avons préalablement posées. Alors c'est toujours intéressant d'avoir cet échange plus global sur la politique immobilière de la Commission, sur la stratégie développée, notamment la mise en œuvre du New Bauhaus et les ambitions énergétiques et de verdissement portées par la Commission sur ses différents sites. Alors j'ai encore quelques questions à poser à nos interlocuteurs. Les premières questions visent spécifiquement la situation bruxelloise. D'une part, on connaît bien la stratégie, on la suit depuis quelques années.
On connaît les objectifs. Et au-delà de la réduction des différentes surfaces et la vente des différents bâtiments, est-ce que d'autres réductions sont encore envisagées à l'avenir en fonction des perspectives futures ? Est-ce qu'on peut en savoir un peu plus sur ce qui guide la Commission quand elle fait ses choix de soit louer, soit d'acheter un certain nombre de bâtiments, quels sont les critères de choix ? On voit aussi d'ailleurs qu'il est assez difficile de trouver des bâtiments proches du cœur européen ici à Bruxelles. D'ailleurs on évoquait encore ce matin la continuité de cinq contrats de location en fonction de cette difficulté de trouver des bâtiments.
Il est notamment je pense impératif d'élargir le périmètre des recherches. Ce serait peut-être bien d'avoir quelques éclaircissements par rapport à cet élargissement du périmètre.
Mes deux dernières questions sont plus globales. Elles visent d'une part les collocations auxquelles participe la Commission avec les AES ou le EIB. Ce serait bien de pouvoir avoir quelques explications sur l'aspect volontaire de la Commission dans ces collocations. Qu'est-ce qui est envisagé à l'avenir pour pouvoir mutualiser les coûts avec d'autres institutions européennes ? Et enfin ma dernière question.
Dans le working document, on indique que la Commission tiendra compte de la vulnérabilité climatique et des risques potentiels tels qu'ils sont identifiés par la Commission. Est-ce qu'on peut être un peu plus explicite sur cette vulnérabilité climatique et les risques identifiés en la matière ainsi d'ailleurs que l'impact budgétaire que ça révèle ? Déjà merci pour les réponses que vous voudrez bien nous fournir.
Monika Hohlmeier
So I was asking if we're doing ping pong or if I have to continue as shadow rapporteur. So I have to continue as shadow rapporteur, was told by the secretariat. So thank you very much. I would have further questions. The first one is related to the selling, also ich spreche einfach mal auf Deutsch weiter, ist bezogen auf den Verkauf der Gebäudlichkeiten in Brüssel.
Und da wollte ich gerne mal wissen, was kann uns da eigentlich noch drohen ? Also völlig unabhängig von Strafverfahren oder potenziellen Strafermittlungen, kann uns da drohen, dass der Vertrag nicht gültig ist, dass es potenziell zu irgendwelchen zusätzlichen Komplikationen führt oder wie stehen da Gespräche, die jetzt außerhalb dieses ganzen Strafermittlungsansatzes stehen oder der Ermittlungsbehörden stehen ? Dann als zweites, die Bürofläche soll ja um 150.000 Quadratmeter insgesamt sinken. Inwieweit ist hier, also nachdem es ja auch eine Strategie in Richtung Homeoffice plus Anwesenheit gibt, wie viel gemeinsame Anwesenheit gibt es überhaupt noch von Mitarbeiter, weil das ja doch schon wesentlich ist für die Qualität der Arbeit, dass sich die Mitarbeiter überhaupt noch gegenseitig kennen beziehungsweise auch tatsächlich in effektiv in ihrer Arbeit zusammenarbeiten ? Des Weiteren ist für mich eine Frage zum Thema Jean Monnet 2 in Luxemburg.
Das ist ja die never ending story. Also ich kenne das Ding ja schon seitdem ich hier frisch ins Parlament gekommen bin, aber das ist noch nicht frisch, 2013 und die ganzen Vorplanungen dazu. Irgendwie glaube ich langsam nicht mehr, dass die irgendwann mal noch fertig werden nach 13 Jahren. Meine Frage ist tatsächlich, wie kann es sein, dass ein Gebäude auf über 800 Millionen in den Kosten anwächst ? Also wenn wir uns als Parlament das mit dem PERS-Gebäude so erlauben würden, dann wäre da großer Terror los.
Wir haben ja bei uns auch das Gebäude in Luxemburg fürs Parlament deutlich reduziert und in den Kosten eingeschränkt. Das kann ich jetzt beim Jean Monnet nicht ganz entdecken. Und ich wollte gerne auch mal fragen, das Kinderbetreuungszentrum CP6, wie viele Plätze wird das haben ? Für wie viele Mitarbeiter ist das gedacht oder soll das eine öffentliche Crèche werden, die auch anderen zugänglich ist ? Ich wollte einfach mal fragen, da ist ja dieses große Kinderbetreuungszentrum vorgesehen, wird das unter der Ägide der Kommission laufen oder unter welcher Ägide wird das Ganze laufen ?
Nils.
Nils Ušakovs
Thank you, Chair. I will have again overlapping questions with yours about both Jean Monnet and about the sales of buildings in Brussels. So, given that the Jean Monnet 2 building project in Luxembourg has faced persistent difficulties and extended delivery timeline, now delayed to mid or to late 2028, and a noted risk of exceeding the Commission's indexed budget of approximately 800 million. 800 million. Yeah, yeah.
It's gross. What specific operational, legal, or financial mechanisms have been built into the contract amendments with the contracting authority to guarantee that the project will strictly remain within the recently communicated timeframe and that the available contingency reserve ensuring that no further budget increases will be requested? And the second question: the document notes that the balance of the revenue from the massive sale of 23 Commission buildings in April 2024 is expected to be almost 438 million at the end of 2026, with an estimated annual interest rate assumption of 2 percentage points as it's drawn down through 2034. Now, is the Commission ring-fencing these sales revenues to ensure they're exclusively utilized for the designed multi-annual real estate expenditures, such as for instance the new conference center and L-130 extensions? And what measures are in place to safeguard the projected 2% financial interest yield against market volatility?
Thank you.
Morten Fjalland
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the members for the interesting questions. On the first one to the distinguished member and rapporteur, to Luis Estrela, on the question, if you will, between choice of between renting and buying, there's also a third element to this, which we are starting to experiment with, which is also the renovation part of already owned buildings or still owned buildings in our portfolio. And this is something where I'm happy that we have been able to go further in learning how we can do this in the Charlemagne building, floor by floor, but also when we then ask Directorates-General to move out so that we can do this and move them back in, they will... this is not always very popular, but they will compress in the space that they are being allocated. And that also means that not only will we save space in this way, we will also offer updated good space for the DGs in question, and we will also in that way make overall good value for money on this, and we will be learning about how to go ahead with partial updating of buildings in the way that we can look at what would we do next for other buildings that we currently own. This we are reflecting on internally.
We are looking also at which specific studies do we need to launch to actually get to that situation. So it's not only a question of renting and buying, that will be a very ad hoc situation for individual proposals that might be getting to us, but it is also a question of making sure that with our good colleagues in DG Budget in the Commission, that we have the right approach together to want to go in the right direction. So this is a complicated question, it's a complicated answer, but we are working on it, including also with internal strategy papers, and at a given stage it would also be very good to be able to share this better when we have an updated strategy for this part. To be fairly clear also, the challenges linked, and that was also in Mr. Estrela's question, linked to let's say getting out of buildings and at the same time also making sure that we can get new buildings prospected for, is a situation that we are dealing with, and we are also looking, and with the Parliament's support this morning also extending certain lease contracts linked to the sales.
On the difficulty in finding new buildings, it is there, but that's also because we have been limiting ourselves a little bit to a specific prospection zone, which we have now, as I tried to set out, prospected and extended that a little bit more, which I think is fair to say opens up for new opportunities that we will be very pleased to look at, all in view of getting competitiveness into these areas to the benefit of our public finances. On the sharing costs with other institutions, I think that's a very interesting part. We are doing this in particular certain parts where we are already leading, for instance, the Commission, but also the Council, also the Parliament on certain specific procurement elements linked to buildings. Another very recent example is that we're looking together at a warehouse, and this we are doing together, by the way, with the European Parliament on this part. So yes, the mutualization of costs is something very much on our minds, and I think it would be good and also between institutions to see how we could possibly go even further in these areas when this makes sense and is of the overall value to the budget.
On the investigation which was launched in February and which there has been public announcements for, my internal line to all colleagues concerned is: do not speculate. This is not for us, this is for the competent authority. And meanwhile, we are making sure that we can do all proper things also going forward, making sure that there's clarity of what we are coming to present also to the budgetary authority. And I would prefer, if you allow me, Mrs. Chairman, not to comment on things which is not inside my remit to comment on, but which we will do all we can to cooperate with the competent authorities when approached. On the issue of dynamic collaborative space, so the quality of buildings allowing for good quality work from staff is key to us.
In that part, you also noted about the issue of what's the balance and what's perhaps also the right balance between working in the office and working elsewhere. Because of course there is an element also of cost saving when you don't need to have all in place at the same time in all buildings. But it's also an element which is not good for the public finances if you leave a lot of empty spaces in that. So we are trying to get the right balance. We have statistics on the occupancy rate buildings by buildings.
And we also have with our good colleagues in DG HR a sense with a little bit of variation between DGs and specific business circumstances how much staff should be in the buildings. Generally speaking, in some buildings we are three to four days per week, and certain buildings we are more. And then also in some buildings when it's not needed, we are also down to what is the minimum acceptable in the time management decision, which is two days per week. I agree with you, Mrs. Chair, that this issue of being available, but some people also doing financial assistant work and they may not necessarily have the same outfacing need to be available, but I fully get the point. We're looking very carefully at this balance.
On any element linked to Jean Monnet, I will leave it to my good colleague Guy Drobaert.
Guy Drowart
Merci Madame la Présidente. Voilà, je vais peut-être commencer par le CPE 6. Donc il ne s'agit en réalité pas d'une crèche mais d'un centre polyvalent pour les enfants.
Donc c'est pour les enfants scolarisés. Et donc dans ce dossier, ce ce bâtiment futur vise à remplacer le centre polyvalent pour l'enfance numéro 1 et avoir des synergies avec le centre polyvalent pour l'enfance numéro 3. Ils sont tous situés en fait dans la même zone au niveau du Kirchberg. Et donc afin de pouvoir construire cette cet immeuble, la première chose c'est qu'il y a un changement du plan d'affectation qui doit avoir lieu au niveau de la ville de Luxembourg. Donc aujourd'hui c'est un une zone d'arbres, un arboretum, et donc ça doit être changé.
Et donc les autorités luxembourgeoises sont occupées à travailler sur ce sujet. Alors à votre question pour savoir si c'était ouvert à d'autres enfants, en principe c'est pour les enfants des institutions. Donc en fait nous donc si si l'OIL gère le le centre et comme les autres centres d'ailleurs, les enfants de toutes les institutions situées à Luxembourg sont accueillis dans cet ensemble. Ça représente en général l'ensemble de toutes les les CPE représente 1800 enfants et dans le cas spécifique du CPE 6 on vise 450 enfants. Il n'est pas prévu de mettre une crèche là-dedans.
Une des raisons c'est qu'en fait l'espace pour un enfant dans une crèche est beaucoup plus important et en fait la demande est extrêmement importante pour la garderie post-scolaire dont question. Et donc l'arbitrage a été en plus la parcelle ne s'y prête pas particulièrement bien et donc on vise à maximiser le nombre d'enfants dans la le centre pour les enfants scolarisés. Donc ça c'est pour le le premier point. En ce qui concerne le Jean Monnet, oui, c'est un dossier qui est malheureusement très lent et pour lequel nous sommes évidemment tout à fait désolés de la façon dont ça ça évolue. Donc on a annoncé lors de donc il y a quelques semaines, on a informé l'autorité budgétaire des retards du retard de deux ans supplémentaires.
Donc ça évidemment a énormément d'impact d'abord au niveau de la gestion des espaces. Également en termes d'image c'est assez négatif pour l'Union puisqu'on voit que ce bâtiment qui devrait quand même transformer ou compléter ce qui se passe sur le Kirchberg, ben voilà, il est quand on le voit il a l'air terminé. En fait c'est ça le problème. C'est quand on le voit la façade a l'air terminée est terminée mais au niveau des agencements, des techniques et cetera, la coordination au niveau de la maîtrise d'œuvre est déficitaire. C'est en fait ce qu'on a exposé dans la note qu'on avait envoyée à l'autorité budgétaire.
Et donc nous veillons à ne plus exiger ne plus faire aucun changement dans le le bâtiment. Donc on avait déjà réduit très très fort les demandes de changement pour un ne pas donner prétexte à l'architecte de retarder encore la livraison et surtout pour contenir évidemment les coûts puisque chaque changement a un coût. Également et on avait répondu aux questions à la fois lors de ma présence ici il y a deux semaines et également dans les questions sur la gestion future de tels projets. Il est clair d'avoir beaucoup plus de contrôle sur à la fois le fonctionnement de l'architecte, sa méthode de travail, son sa rémunération en termes de phases qui sont délivrées. Et donc c'est malheureusement une expérience assez assez négative et je suis vraiment désolé de cet état de fait.
Nous travaillons énormément avec les autorités luxembourgeoises et l'administration des bâtiments publics afin de progresser dans et de tenir les délais qui sont qui ont été annoncés. Je vous remercie.
Monika Hohlmeier
So I just would like to remind you on my question about the possible investigation and the results for the contract, not about the criminal investigations, but about the possible consequences about if the contract is not accepted, if the contract is really not done in a proper way of the selling of the building, 23 buildings. I did not get any answer, not this morning, not this afternoon. It's not nice, but necessary to know.
Morten Fjalland
Yes, I would like, I know that's not entirely satisfactory, Madam Chairman, and I would like to stay limiting myself in the information that I'm putting forward on this, as you can imagine, that the members can imagine, for elements where there is a scrutiny, be it from an auditing instance or from another competent authority, we are particularly keen to make sure that we are safeguarding the interests and also with good legal advice from internally for that part. The part where I'm particularly concerned not to overstep any mandate that is not mine is to speculate on any outcome of any element being looked at linked to our contracts. For when it comes to specific buildings contracts, we are also there looking closely at them together with legal advice when we so need this, need this part. On the general issue of procedural parts of the Commission, we are working very closely inside the Commission, including with the right other services, to make sure that we continue to go forward with procedural clarity. And also there is interest which is linked to the European Court of Auditors and their annual reporting.
There's interest from that side that we are doing all what we can to respond to, and also including to a clearing letter that has come out recently that we have also looked at and responded to the best of our ability. I would suggest, if you would allow me to leave it here, I am available for any other information when this would be fine to be of specific use or when there would be specific concerns here, but staying well inside my mandate that I noted clearly, which is not to speculate in what is investigations or other elements which are for others.
Speaker 26
So then are there any further questions? Then perhaps the rapporteur normally has the last word.
Olivier Chastel
Merci, Madame la Présidente. Au nom de mes collègues, je veux évidemment remercier les directions et les services pour cet échange de vues toujours très intéressant, notamment en matière de stratégie, puisque d'habitude vous venez devant la commission pour des dossiers bien spécifiques. Ici, c'est pour développer la stratégie, notamment à moyen terme sur les différents sites en ce qui concerne la Commission européenne, et en cela nous voulons vous remercier pour votre présence et pour cet échange.
Monika Hohlmeier
Okay. Then thank you very much. Perhaps on on this other item we would have the possibility then to get some some questions, not about the investigation itself, but about possible scenario of what we have to do. So thank you very much. Then we can continue with the point 27, the draft amending budget number 2 to the general budget.
And may I thank to all speakers of OIB, OIL and Joint Research Center for your presence here in the committee. Thanks a lot. Update of revenue, own resources and adjustments to expenditure. Our rapporteur is already here, Andrzej Halicki. So one moment.
Yes. I know, she's sitting there. She's already waiting. So the Commission will have the chance to present a draft budget includes significant updates. Filipkova from DG Budget is with us and we would like to hear of you more about the updates that you have for us.
You have the floor.
Lenka Filipkova
Thank you very much, Madam President. And indeed I'm here to present the draft amending budget number 2 that you've already heard about from from our Commissioner last week. So we have adopted or the Commission adopted the draft amending budget on the 9th of June and this is the usual update of of the revenue side of the budget, but it also includes some rather substantial changes on the expenditure side. So overall on the expenditure side we are actually increasing the commitments by 444 million euro and by 8 billion euro in payments. Let me start with the revenue.
Normally in spring we meet with the Member States in this advisory committee on own resources and we look at the forecast of the own resources basis based on the latest economic forecasts. And then in this amending budget we include the updates of the VAT own resource, the GNI, the plastics own resource, but also the forecast of the customs duties and the other revenue like the fines and the UK United Kingdom contribution. What is really important in this particular case that on the update of the customs customs duties based on the latest available forecast we actually now forecast an increase by 14% on the collected customs duties, meaning about 3 billion more in customs duties collected. On the other hand, we have also updated the contribution of the United Kingdom which is now about 563 million less than what we included in the budget for 2026. On the positive side, we have also collected more fines compared to the 101 million included in the voted budget.
We have now budgeting additional 1.2 billion, most of it coming from the competition fines and also some amounts for Member States penalties and lump sums. On the expenditure side, as I said it is it is rather important and most of these increases link to to the need of cohesion and rural development. As we explained that there was the the implementation of the cohesion policy increased significantly at the end of 2025 where we received about 14 billion of payment claims in the last week of of 2025. So we immediately obviously used the 2026 appropriations to pay these claims, but that creates a pressure for the 26 budget. So therefore we are proposing to increase the cohesion budget by 5.4 billion euro already now to make sure that we have enough enough payments by the end of October at least so that we can always respect the two two months deadline for the payments to Member States.
We have also seen a faster implementation of rural development where we are proposing now to increase the payments by 2.2 billion euro to make sure that we can cover all the claims by Member States this year. On top of that, we are proposing to substantially reinforce both in commitment and payments the agriculture, both the EAGF for direct payments by 340 million euros. This is more linked to the fact that we assume there will be assigned revenue higher than what we have effectively collected, so we need to increase the voted budget to cover the claims by Member States. And we are also proposing to increase the agriculture reserve by 300 million euros so that we can propose a measure, targeted measure to for farmers to support them in the in the effects of the increased prices of fertilizers. So with the amounts that are already available in the agriculture reserve, we will be able to propose a package of higher than half a billion euros for the farmers specifically for that purpose.
In the draft amending budget, there are also more technical elements. One of one of them is to to provide the administrative expenditure and additional staff to manage the Ukraine support loan, so where we need about 53 additional staff out of which 41 above the stable staffing and also 1 million for IT and and other equipment linked to the borrowing operations. Finally, the DAB also introduces two technical adjustments. First, we are returning in a way the money of 1.5 million euro from the budget contribution to the European Environment Agencies back to the LIFE program following the withdrawal of the European forest monitoring proposal and delays in the adoption of the green claims directive. And we have also changed one budget remark for the InvestEU fund to make sure that some contributions by Member State can be correctly implemented.
Therefore, we believe that with this amending budget, we are also bringing up bringing more in line the the revenue part of the budget with with what the Member States should should pay. We are proposing to get closer to what we need and manage to manage the the Member State payments. And we are also proposing to provide more finances for the farmers for the fertilizers. It is therefore very important that this amending budget is adopted as soon as possible and therefore we would plead for your support in in the early adoption of this amending budget. Thank you very much.
Andrzej Halicki
Thank you very much. I would like to be very concrete and brief also because I see that the time is going. So, thank you for all the information, for all the information presented by Mrs. Vilpaukova also today. I would like to emphasize several points because this is DAB 2, so so we will have final decision I think after summer, but I would like to emphasize that the figures we would like to focus on now, first of all, these are the very significant big payments needs in especially cohesion policy and and in agriculture. All together, this is 7.56 billion in payment appropriations and structural funds.
So all general this is important and positive information, we have no problem with with that. The next figure which is important is the support for for farmers because of the higher price of fertilizers.
I have to check it because I have 300 million, not half a billion, but well, this is the figure which is for sure not overestimated because of the situation in Middle East and the situation of higher costs for farmers, for producers. Then what is very important also, it's the support for Ukraine. We have a Ukrainian support loan. I have no exact figures for that, but then I would like to ask for the accurate information on borrowing costs and also it's important to have the full knowledge for our shadows, for all the members of our commission. Then I would like also emphasize that commission proposes also to use 1 million, not 1 billion, 1 million only, this very limited from the flexibility instrument and also 3.2 million from the single margin instrument to for our priorities.
This is because of lack of margins, the proposal which is rather symbolic, but I would like ask shadows also to have together the decision on that. Then the deadline which is proposed is rather before the summit, before the summer holidays. We proposed 30th of June to collect all the amendments of proposal to have the final proposal sent to all the colleagues because the budget committee will be ready to adopt in September first during after the summer holidays. If we'll work like that, then we'll have also DAP 3 probably, probably not together, but but also soon we'll have the picture of implementation of the budget for 2026 more clear. Thank you very much.
Nils Ušakovs
Thank you, chair. The first question is about fertilizers and support for our farmers, which we of course agree with this proposal. The question is, first of all, if the peace agreement holds, how much time according to your forecasts would be needed until the prices of fertilizers are stabilized? And this 300 million support, it was budgeted with what scenario in mind, peace in the near future or prolonged conflict and disruption? With respect, the second question, support loan to Ukraine and 41 posts over and above stable staffing to implement this support.
And that would request 3.2 million in commitment and payment appropriations. So this is in obviously is in line with what the parliament supported when we voted for the Ukrainian loan package, but it's still quite a lot in terms of staff, more than the entire staff of some decentralized agencies. So would it be possible to get some more details, for example, the breakdown of the general assignments of the new staff and also about the way staff is located in the EU delegation to Ukraine and how many will be staying in Brussels? Another question is about the proposed reinforcement of 5.336 billion for cohesion policy and the cohesion backlog. And we're talking about reinforcement which is already in DAP and it leads us to the risk of running out of payment appropriations by the end of this year.
And this development suggests that the project implementation, on one hand, which is a good news, by Member States is picking up considerably. But further assessment of the needs until the end of the year will be done at the end of the summer and based on the Member States' forecast to be submitted by the end of next month. So, does the Commission have any indication of how much this could be? And is the Commission confident that the margin we have in payment will be sufficient to cover this and future needs? And another question, the last one if I may, is about fixed customs duty of three euro on small parcels valued at less than 150 euro entering the European Union, largely via e-commerce.
And that will enter into force from the first of July this year, so basically in less than in two weeks. So how much revenues does this expect to bring in and when we will be able to see the revenue effect of this duty in the Union's budget? Thank you.
Monika Hohlmeier
Thank you very much, Nils. Mr. Jungbluth? No, no comment. Then Commission again, Ms. Filipkova.
Ms. Filipkova
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Mr. Rapporteur and Mr. Ušakovs for your questions. So indeed, on the fertilizers, we are increasing by 300 million the agriculture reserve, but there's still amount available in the agriculture reserve. So the amount available for the measure, for the specific measure for agriculture will be actually higher than half a billion. So we are finalizing the measure now, which will be adopted in I think in summer, but this topping up allows us to propose bigger package. So indeed, your number was correct, but it tops up what we already have.
And maybe to also address immediately the question from Mr. Ušakovs, so what we are proposing now is to cover the price or help the farmers to cover the increased price of fertilizers for the next agriculture year, so that they can cover the increased cost now. And we hope that by the next agriculture year the price will go down, otherwise we will have to see whether different measures will need to be adopted. But this is really to help them immediately to prepare for the next season. On the Ukraine support loan, so you've seen that the borrowing costs what we plan is to pay 4.5 billion this year, out of which about 30 billion in the second and third quarter of 2026. And the cost of this 30 billion are included in the budget 2027.
It's about 1 billion 150 million. So what we are including in the budget of 2026 is really just the administrative cost, which consist of the additional posts and of the IT cost. And unfortunately, because these are in heading seven and in heading 2b where there are no margins available, in order to mobilize these amounts we need to mobilize the two special instruments for limited amounts, but still. For the 41 posts, we have I think included the detail in the legislative financial statement. But indeed, I think the intention was to allocate about 10 posts to the delegation in Kiev, but we will need to confirm because I think about 30 of these 41 posts were for DG DEFIS linked to the defense part of the Ukraine support loan.
And the other parts are for other DGs, for Budget on linked to the borrowing, for DG ECFIN linked to the macro-financial assistance, also to DG NEAR and Legal Service, for DG NEAR linked to the Ukraine Facility that implements part of the Ukraine support loan and Legal Service that also is involved in managing the loan agreements and the legal part of the whole setup.
Lenka Filipkova
As regards the backlog, indeed, the backlog is a normal part of the implementation of payments. We always count on a backlog because we always get some claims at the very last week of the year, which normally arrives too late to be effectively paid. So it is not surprising, but the level of the backlog was surprising at the end of 2025. So it was over 18 billion. So what we are trying to do in the budget 2027, as you have seen last week, we have basically reaching the limits what we can do.
So we have assessed the request from member states also for 2027 and proposed the maximum level of payments. And now we have done one step for 2026 to manage a little bit the backlog. But indeed, based on the member states' forecast that we received by the end of July, we will then reassess whether we need to increase in 2026 the payments again in the last amending budget of the year to make sure that we manage the backlog and that we really get to lower it at the end of 2027, not to bring too high amount of backlog into the next MFF. As regards the small parcels, indeed, it will enter into force shortly, but it is too soon to estimate a specific amount because it will really depend on how the businesses and consumers may adapt to this. So the forecast of the customs duties is still based on the general economic forecast.
And we will see, normally we have two approaches to forecast the customs duties, linked to the trade patterns based on the economic forecast, but we also look at the actual collection of the customs duties during the year. Normally we do the assessment once more in September when we are preparing the last amending budget of the year. And then if we see that the collection is faster than what we planned or slower, then we can still prepare the correction in the last amending budget of the year. But it is difficult at this point of time to see what will be the exact impact of the small packages that we will start collecting soon. Thank you very much.
Andrzej Halicki
I feel that we have now any controversial decisions. The lack of margins also, it's rather nothing to have a quarrel between us because of very limited number of possibilities.
Monika Hohlmeier
No money left for quarrel. So thanks a lot, Andrzej. Thank you to the Commission, Ms. Filipkowa, thank you very much. Now we are already at the end of our meeting and I wish you a nice evening. And I was happy that you three were still in the room, so that the chair is not totally alone here.
So thanks a lot, have a good time and a nice evening.
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