based) and near the homes of the civil servants to the south and east. The land chosen was then occupied by the Dames de Berlaymont, a 300-year-old convent which managed a venerable girls' school. The convent and school moved to a larger and quieter site out of the city centre in Waterloo. Once the Belgian state finished their new school and built infrastructure to it, the Dames de Berlaymont handed the site, which they had been under pressure to sell to developers for years, to the Belgian government in November 1963. To organise what was needed, the Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Wigny suggested a "Commission consultative Berlaymont", where the commission, the Belgian Public Works Ministry, the contractors and the architects could draw up the plans. However, the Belgian state desired a building not just tailored to the commission, but something that could be used by its own civil servants were the commission to leave. This was also why they favoured a central office building rather than the project for the construction of a "European city" on the Etterbeek. Due to the plans not meeting their exact desires, the Commission gained a lower rent. Construction The work was planned so that as soon as each wing was complete, staff could move in while the rest of the building was still under construction. The north and east wings were to be completed first (estimated for August 1961 though that proved optimistic). The south would take longer given the need to demolish more buildings including the girls school, with the Dames du Berlaymont unable to vacate until 1963. The Belgian government, realising that budgetary constraints meant it could not meet any of the deadlines, resorted to outside funding from the Office de sécurité sociale d'Outre-mer (OSSOM). OSSOM would own the land but the building would be constructed and rented by the Belgian government with rent deducted from its contribution to OSSOM's budget. Eventually it would buy it in 1985 through regular instalments while it was being sublet to the commission. OSSOM awarded the construction contract to an association of entrepreneurs: Enterprises François et Fils with Compagnie belge des Chemins de fer et d'entreprises, Compagnie industrielle de travaux and Armand Blaton. The lack of a public tender was criticised by the Belgian audit office. In 1963, the first wing (north-east) entered its active phase and was scheduled to be finished by the end of