Mounting costs and delays mean the Commission may have to wait until 2003 or later before returning to its old Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels

Date: 07/12/00

According to a consultants report ordered by the EU's executive, the renovation of the building, which should have been completed this year, is likely to run beyond the end of 2002 and the estimated costs will rise significantly. The Commission evacuated the building in 1991 over an asbestos scare.