Usage
The building has housed the European Commission since its construction, and has become a symbol of the Commission (its name becoming a metonymy for the Commission) and the European presence in Brussels. The Commission itself is spread over some 60 odd buildings, but the Berlaymont is the institution'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: Personnel and Administration (ADMIN), Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA), Communication (COMM), Brussels Office of Infrastructure and Logistics (OIB), Secretariat-General (SG) and the Legal Service (SJ).
The office of the President and the Commission boardroom are on the 13th floor (occupied by the President in defiance of superstition surrounding the number), together with the meeting room of the Hebdo and the restaurant La Convivialité.
Read more about this topic: Berlaymont Building
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
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—A.J. (Alfred Jules)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)