- Area: 53815 m²
- Year: 2016
-
Manufacturers: Jansen, Metos, POTTEAU LABO, thyssenkrupp
-
MEP Engineering: Buro Happold, Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS, Steve Mc CLEAVE
-
Structural Engineering: Buro Happold, Philippe SAMYN and PARTNERS, Philippe SAMYN, Nick GREENWOOD
Text description provided by the architects. The current building used for European Council and Council meetings - the Justus Lipsius - was planned in the late 1980s, when the EU had 12 member states, and is in use since 1994.
It was not conceived to host meetings of heads of state or government (they were organised away from Brussels at the time), nor for 27 or more member states.
Since 2008, the number of meetings of Heads of state or government in the Justus Lipsius has doubled on average (from 4 to 8). In addition, since 2009, the JL hosts summits between the EU and third countries (e.g. EU-China, EU-Russia, etc.)
For each meeting of EU Heads of state or government, all other meetings have to be cancelled during three days (more than 20 meetings of experts, diplomats, etc. of the 27 member states take place each day in the Council premises).
