Brussels 'propaganda machine' to spend £1.3million flying EU flag over embassy in London

Bureaucrats have set their sights on a prestigious London building for what Eurosceptics warn will be a "propaganda machine" for Brussels.

They plan to turn the building into a "House of Europe", a centre for lobbying MPs, entertaining diplomats and disseminating European information.

The building, which has been described as an "embassy" by the European Commission in Brussels, will house about 50 Eurocrats from the commission and parliament who currently work in two London locations.

A building in Victoria Street in Westminster - ironically the Conservative Party's former campaign HQ - has been chosen as the preferred option, according to Brussels sources.

But because EU chiefs insist on flying the gold-starred EU emblem from the front of the building, they will have to rent the entire site - even though they need only 60 per cent of the floor space. A previous effort to rent an office block on Tothill Street, also in central London, apparently failed because the landlord would not allow the EU flag to be flown from the building.

The new site, which has 50,000 square feet, will cost taxpayers £3.2 million a year in rent. The European Commission and European Parliament between them need a maximum floor area of 2,600 square metres.

But in internal documents, EU bosses acknowledge that unless they rent an entire building, "permission to fly the EU flag or display other forms of externally visible identification will almost certainly not be given".

"There appears to be a general attitude in London that where there is a multi-tenancy building, i.e. more than one occupant, landlords will not allow "branding" of the building," it says.

If the new "super-embassy" does end up on Victoria Street, 40 per cent of the building's floor space would be unused.

It could be sub-let to recoup costs, but the document appears to suggest that "if only part of the building were rented the problem of the flag and other signs of external visibility would arise again".

That would mean the EU paying £1.3m a year for offices standing empty.

But EU managers praise the Victoria Street site as having "excellent visibility" and a "large people flow factor".

Another option under consideration is to put the "super embassy" in 32 Smith Square, another former Tory party HQ and centre of the party's triumphs under Margaret Thatcher.

Conservative MEP Martin Callanan said: "Putting aside for a moment whether we actually need this propaganda machine in London, the prospect of more than a million pounds a year going to waste on this project is horrifying.

"They seem to be obsessed with flying the flag, even to the point of squandering massive amounts of taxpayers' cash.

"It's somewhat ironic that the EU wants to spread the gospel of euro-federalism from a former Conservative Party HQ. I'm sure Maggie would have something to say about it."

Gerard Batten, UK Independence Party MEP for London, said: "We should save the money and have no EU office at all. Any information they want to convey can be done on a website."

A spokesman for the EU Parliament said: "There is just no decision taken yet. This is one of many options."