Brussels is currently carrying the burden of Europe by having become its capital. However, far from being a collective and cohesive project, the European government has decentralized its institutions and agencies by locating them in cities other than Brussels. Yet the on-going concentration of staff and offices in Brussels has created the need for the Belgian government to provide a setting for the European administration, which recognizes Brussels as a European capital. As a result, the contradiction between a widespread European network of administrative functions and a representative capital city has lead to the project of a problematic administrative district. A project that should have animated a civic and collective domain, but was given over to the interests of private developers: the European Union and its urban formation of Brussels has surrendered to the uncompromising interests of private capital.