Berlaymont building
seat of the European Commission
The Berlaymont building, or simply the Berlaymont (French pronunciation: [bɛʁlɛmɔ̃]), is an office building in Brussels, Belgium, which houses the headquarters of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The structure is located on the Robert Schuman Roundabout at 200, rue de la Loi/Wetstraat, in the European Quarter. The unique form of the Berlaymont's architecture is used in the European Commission's official emblem. The building is named after the former Convent of the Ladies of Berlaymont, which occupied the site.
Usage
The building has housed the European Commission since its construction, and has become a symbol of the European presence in Brussels and a metonym for the EU's executive power. The European Commission itself is spread over some 60-odd buildings, but the Berlaymont is the European Commission's headquarters, being the seat of the president of the European Commission and its College of Commissioners.
The following Directorates-General (departments) are also based in the Berlaymont: Human Resources and Security (HR), European Political Strategy Centre, formerly known as Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA), Communication (COMM), Brussels Office of Infrastructure and Logistics (OIB), Secretariat-General (SG) and Legal Service (SJ).
The office of the president, the European Commission, and the boardroom, are on the 13th floor, together with the meeting room of the "Hebdo", as well as the restaurant La Convivialité.
Ursula von der Leyen is the first European Commission's president to actually reside in the Berlaymont. She sleeps in a small private area next to her main office on the 13th floor.
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This entry incorporates text from “Berlaymont building” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.