Painful history lessons

More problems for the House of European History.

The European Parliament’s museum project – to create a House of European History in Brussels – is turning into something of a house of horrors.

The Parliament’s budgets committee has been asked by the bureau, the leadership of the Parliament, to release a reserve of €2.5 million to pay for architectural fees and more technical studies on making the Parliament’s Eastman building fit to house the museum.

Hans-Gert Pöttering, a centre-right German MEP, who launched the project when he was president of the Parliament and is still its chief cheerleader, told the committee last week (3 March) that the money was needed to get the project ready for opening in either 2014 or 2015.

The Parliament put the €2.5m into a reserve last year, amid uncertainty about how much the entire project would cost. After the addition of another €18m in estimated costs, the price-tag for renovating the Eastman building, adding an extension and fitting out the museum is now put at €52.4m.

MEPs on the budgets committee wanted to know why the Council of Ministers and the European Commission have not offered financial support to help fund the museum. Salvador Garriga Polledo, a centre-right MEP from Spain, said he “didn’t understand” why the city of Brussels was not paying for the project, since it had the most to gain from increased tourism.

The Eastman building is at the bottom of Park Leopold, which used to house the city’s zoological gardens. Could it be that the MEPs are on their way to creating an expensive White Elephant House?