The location for the new Chemicals Authority of the European Union has been decided. According to a news report on the commercial television network Nelonen, the headquarters of the authority will be located in a building on Annankatu in the Finnish capital that now houses the head offices of the pension insurance company Varma.
The official lease between the Finnish state and Varma is expected to be signed on Friday. Varma is to be relocated in a new building that is being put up in the area of Salmisaari.
The Chemicals Authority is to be set up officially in just over a year, but the first 40 employees of the new institution have already been chosen. The authority is to expand rapidly, and the whole building is to be in full use in 2009, with up to 500 people working under the same roof.
The Varma offices have 25,000 square metres of floor space for the current staff of 680 people.
The Varma building was reportedly chosen from a list of 30 options, including one early front-runner, the Viikki campus site of the University of Helsinki, to the east of the downtown area.
Finland was given the Chemicals Agency after previous plans to secure the European Food Safety Authority were torpedoed by the Italians.
