Building on ‘soft’ foundation

Date: 04/06/1998

There is nothing quite like putting your money (or ours) where your mouth is. Last week, European Parliament President José-María Gil-Robles put his pen to a 'notorial act' taking up the option to buy all the institution's buildings at Espace Léopold for a cool 1.1 billion ecu.

As is the case with most of these big deals, however, the money is virtual rather than real. In fact, the Parliament will, through a vehicle company called Forum Léopold, borrow 910 million ecu from Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB), the German bank recently investigated by the European Commission for receiving 'soft' loans from its regional government.