Time for plan B

Is the Commission really a forward-looking organisation?

Those who think that the European Commission is a backward-looking organisation, pining for the glory days of Jacques Delors, should think again. The Commission is, it turns out, a forward-looking organisation, brave enough to do battle with the 21st century and to embrace such innovations as open-plan offices.

Or, at least the Office for Infrastructure and Logistics in Brussels (the OIB), the part of the Commission that manages everyone else’s offices, is embracing the concept of open-plan. The OIB is moving from rue de la Loi up to Merode, to the Cours St Michel building previously occupied by the department for regional policy. In its new home (referred to as CSM1) it will be departing from the Commission norm, which is that administrators each have their own office, or in rare cases share with one other person; the size of office takes into account seniority; and if anyone has to share an office it will be secretarial staff, contract agents and assistants.

The OIB, in the latest issue of its newsletter, poetically entitled “Concrete”, and circulated to all Commission staff, presents the case for open-plan offices, in appropriately jargon-ridden language: “After years of experience in fitting out conventional offices, OIB now wishes to develop its expertise in the management of open spaces. The services responsible for managing building policy and real estate projects will therefore be among the first ones to test these new working methods and the layout on the last floor of CSM1 which will be fully converted into a large open space.

“They will be able to acquire a more practical expertise which will allow them to advise other DGs. The open spaces are not only envisaged from an economic angle (rationalization of the space, flexibility during moves and reorganisations), but also to improve the communication and the functioning of teams.”

Rarely can a declaration of war have been couched in such reassuringly bland language. What the OIB might do with its new-found expertise in the management of open spaces is not hard to guess. This is a challenge to the rest of the Commission, and indeed to the Commission as it was conceived and created and as it has been maintained, ie, as a pale imitation of la service publique in 1950s France.

In an interview with “Concrete”, Marie-Pierre Darchy, head of the OIB’s unit for human resources and communication, ventures the suggestion: “Experience shows that working in open space prompts new behaviour, mostly in terms of respect for others.” Darchy appears to be labouring under the misapprehension that Commission officials will find attractive the prospect of having to change their behaviour. Perhaps.

The evils of open-plan offices are well-known in the European Parliament, whose hemicycle in Brussels has been out of action since last summer after cracks were found in the ceiling supports. The hemicycle is a no-go zone at least until November, and in the meantime the Parliament has cancelled the mini-plenary sessions that used to happen periodically in Brussels.

This detail appears to have escaped the Council of Ministers secretariat, which publishes – and regularly updates – a calendar of the scheduled Council meetings over the course of each Council presidency, accompanied by a list of “other meetings”. The list, updated on 2 April, still suggests that there will be a mini-plenary session of the Parliament in Brussels in May. There will not. Although it might be tempting to suspect that some in the Council want to send a message that they do not really care what the Parliament gets up to, Entre Nous will resist the temptation.

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