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Brussels region cuts back on office space
The Brussels region is making savings of €6.1 million a year in rent, following moves to centralise its public administrations and operate a "flexi-desk" policy.
If this policy continues, by 2030, Brussels could save as much as €12 million per year, Brussels finance and budget minister Sven Gatz told the Brussels parliament, in response to a question from MP Benjamin Dalle (CD&V).
He said that cabinets will have to make do with much less space in future, in line also with the policy to reduce cabinet staff.
In December 2022, the Brussels government decided to provide only 0.6 places per full-time civil servant. Due to remote working, holidays, meetings away from home and illness, a desk for each worker was considered no longer necessary.
In this way, five floors were freed up in the Iris Tower at Brussels-North Station. This enabled Brussels’ IT organisation Paradigm, charged with preparing, managing and implementing the region’s digital strategy and the capital’s employment agency Talent Brussels to move to the building, allowing other associated leases to be terminated.
Major savings have also been made at the Astro Tower, home to Actiris – the capital’s main job seekers' agency, due to the proposed rationalisation and reorganisation of services.
The biggest gain, some €3.3 million per year, has been achieved by ending the lease of the Botanique building. The leases of the cabinets of government minister Sven Gatz (near Madou) and state secretary Ans Persoons (in the capital’s Northern Quarter) will expire already at the end of this year.
Gatz said the aim is to centralise all cabinets on the Rue de la Régence and Rue Hertog, where the minister-president's cabinet is now located. This building must be renovated – with the cost estimated at €27.6 million – by 2029, when it will become the headquarters of the Brussels government.