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“Cost of new NATO HQ is soaring”

The German news weekly ‘Der Spiegel’ reports that construction of the new NATO headquarters in the Brussels district of Haren is under threat due to rising costs. The cost of building NATO’s new HQ, across the road from its current headquarters, is said to be soaring. Recent estimates put the final price tag at over 1 billion euro.
AP2013

Furthermore, ‘Der Spiegel’ reports that the building contractors will be unable to keep costs below the upper budget limit of 1.05 billion euro. Fresh cash will need to be found if work on the new headquarters is to be completed.

The German news magazine says that 245 million euro extra will be needed to complete the work and that the project won't be completed until more than 9 months later than originally planned.

The building contractors blame "unforeseen circumstances and stricter safety regulations" for the extra cost and delays.

Meanwhile, the main contractor working on the NATO Headquarters project BAM Alliance has confirmed that more time and money will be needed to complete the work. Questions were already raised about the cost of the project in 2010 when BAM Alliance landed a contract worth 456 million euro to do the majority of the work.

Then the total price was estimated at 780 million euro. The Belgian Federal Authorities are in charge of coordinating the construction project. If all goes to plan, NATO should leave its current headquarters by spring 2016.
 

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