Whitley blog

NATO says new headquarters to cost $1.3 billion

BRUSSELS – This is not a time of austerity for NATO, at least where its headquarters are concerned. The military alliance says its new complex will cost euro1 billion ($1.3 billion), a sum critics are calling unnecessary in a time of international belt-tightening.

NATO officials defended the project Tuesday, saying maintenance costs for the "temporary" complex into which NATO moved in 1966 were excessive.

"We're not spending more, we're actually spending less," spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said. "This is a project that's been decided on years ago, way before the financial crisis."

"We even have concrete rot, some parts don't even comply with Belgian safety regulations," Lungescu said.

Construction, scheduled to be finished in 2015, will cost about euro460 million ($600 million), nearly 30 percent less than the original price, Lungescu said.

The rest of the money will be spent to demolish an old Belgian air force base on the site, clear the terrain of bombs left over from World War II, and to pay for new security systems, equipment and furniture as well as the architectural costs.

NATO was formed in 1949 at the height of the Cold War. Its political headquarters was initially in London, but moved to Paris in 1951.

In 1966, French President Charles De Gaulle kicked the alliance out, complaining it was dominated by the United States, and NATO relocated to Brussels, the Belgian capital. It was offered the site of a former airfield just east of the city, from which Nazi bombers had struck at London during World War II.

In more than 60 years of existence, NATO has never had a headquarters built specifically for its use, although it has expanded from 15 members, when it relocated to Brussels, to 28 today.

But the move comes as member governments are cutting defense spending and as the alliance is struggling in the Afghan war, its most ambitious mission yet. Over the past two years, defense spending by NATO's European members has shrunk by about $45 billion.

It also comes as questions are being raised about the continuing relevance of the Cold War alliance, and when NATO's ties with Russia are growing increasingly close.

"The new headquarters is not going to be vacant, but it certainly won't be the nerve center of European defense and security policy that the old building used to be," said Marko Papic, senior analyst at Stratfor, a global intelligence analysis firm from Austin, Texas.