Seat of the European Commission

The seat of the European Commission is in Brussels.

Originally, the seat of the High Authority was a matter of great debate. Under the Schuman Plan, an interim committee was instructed to submit proposals concerning seats of the institutions, but it was unable to reach agreement.

Some Belgians wanted the seat to be in Liège. However, there was disagreement on this issue, both in Belgium itself and in the five other Member States of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Other cities were suggested, such as Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Turin. Saarbrücken was also proposed, and yet, despite its status as a European city, it was not chosen because of the problem with the Saarland.

To break the deadlock, the Luxembourger, Joseph Bech, suggested that the seat of the High Authority be provisionally located in Luxembourg. And so it was. However, ‘provisional’ became ‘definitive’, and the seat of the High Authority remained in Luxembourg until the Merger Treaty combined the executive bodies in 1965. The newly created Commission of the European Communities chose Brussels as its main seat.

The Decision of 12 December 1992 taken by common accord of the representatives of the governments of the Member States during the Edinburgh European Council (relating to the location of the seats of the institutions and of certain bodies and departments of the European Community) established that the seat of the Commission would be in Brussels. The departments referred to in Articles 7, 8 and 9 of the Decision of 8 April 1965 (relating to the provisional location of certain institutions and departments of the Communities) are located in Luxembourg. These are:

– the financial departments of the European Coal and Steel Community;

– the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities;

– the Statistical Office and the data-processing department;

– the hygiene and safety at work departments of the European Economic Community and of the European Coal and Steel Community;

– the Directorate-General for the Dissemination of Information, the Directorate for Health Protection and the Safeguards Directorate of the European Atomic Energy Community.

Address:

200, rue de la Loi/Wetstraat

B-1049 Bruxelles/Brussel