The European Commission said that all 1,700 staff, 50 of whom are Maltese, directly exposed to the presence of asbestos at the Jean Monnet Building in Luxembourg "should have been moved in the first months of 2016 to a temporary building made available by the Luxembourg authorities which should be ready by the end of 2015." The Commission said that since November 2014, staff has gradually started to move into space available in existing office buildings. Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva set this deadline after being repeatedly asked by Maltese MEP Alfred Sant, since December of 2014, for a precise dateline for the abandonment of the Jean Monnet Buildingin Luxembourg.
Reacting to Georgieva’s reply, Dr Sant said that it is hardly believable that the European Commission should have taken so long to remedy a really unacceptable situation in which the health of hundreds of employees was, still is for that matter, being put at risk. "The Commission is supposed to set the standards for others but has been totally relaxed about disregarding them itself on such a vital matter. I hope that this is not the tip of an iceberg and that there are no similar violations hidden in its administrative systems," Dr Sant said in Brussels.
The Commission said that following the approval of the budgetary authority (on 14 April by COMBUD in the Council and on 6 May by the BUDG Committee of the European Parliament), the leases for two replacement buildings to be rented by the Commission were signed on 12 May 2015. They will be fitted out in phases between end September and end November 2015. Relocation of staff will take place in stages, as soon as fitted-out spaces become available. The Commission confirmed that as of today, 4 cases of asbestos exposure have been recognised as professional illnesses among Commission employees stationed in the Jean Monnet Building.
Dr Sant had asked why it took the Commission 20 years to move its employees out of the JeanMonnet Building and whether a definite date had been set by which the Commission plans to have moved all its employees from the building. He also asked how many cases of asbestos exposure had been recognised among Commission employees in the building.