Martin Ehrenhauser

Thanks to Victor Horta and Paul Hankar one often goes into raptures over the elegant and ornate curves of the art nouveau architecture in Brussels.  There is sincerity in this architecture where everything is connected and in perfect harmony. It has clarity despite its playfulness. The distance between this sensitive architecture and the symmetry of the European district is a quantum leap. The inch-perfect landscape of the concreted EU colossi from steel and glass have nothing in common with the reality in Brussels. They seem dull and uninspired. One can find ingenuity only in the legal sophistry of the EU civil servants when it comes to the tendering procedure for the construction of these functional buildings.

Let’s take the 340 million euro construction of the Parliament buildings Willy Brandt and József Antall. A long-term tenancy agreement was creatively signed with the private investor “SA Promotion Léopold” so as to bypass a wide public competition. The European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF hesitantly started an investigation which in the end turned more into an investigation against Jürgen Stoldt – the journalist who had disclosed this. The EU Ombudsman himself concluded that OLAF’s interpretation of its mandate can lead to the fact that “OLAF… cannot fulfil its tasks”.

A verdict of the European Court of Justice, that was passed in October 2009, has galvanized the motor of the bureaucrats’ fantasy. The European Court of Justice condemned the tendering procedure of the construction of 4 exhibition halls in Cologne. Both cases have significant similarities. The judges passed a verdict according to which there should have been a Europe-wide competitive tendering procedure.  The congruence between the universality of financial mismanagement and the lack of character of the architecture of the Brussels Léopold Quartier  is terrifying.

All this inevitably gives rise to a number of questions.  My list of questions to the German General Secretary of the European Parliament was submitted today. To me the verdict of the European Court of Justice is a chance to modify the contract in favour of the tax payers.