European Central Bank Ostend (East End), Frankfurt am Main. The city is the largest financial centre in the Eurozone and the bank's location in it is fixed by the Amsterdam Treaty. The bank moved to new purpose-built headquarters in 2014 that were designed by a Vienna-based architectural office, Coop Himmelbau. The building is approximately tall and will be accompanied with other secondary buildings on a landscaped site on the site of the former wholesale market in the eastern part of Frankfurt am Main. The main construction began in October 2008, and it was expected that the building will become an architectural symbol for
Institutional seats of the European Union locations of the major seats have been enshrined in the treaties of the European Union, Parliament has no right to decide its own seat, unlike other national parliaments. Locating new bodies is also not without political disputes. The European Central Bank's (ECB) seat had to symbolise its independence from political control, and was located in a city which did not already host a national government or European institution. New agencies are also being based in eastern Europe since 2004 to balance the distribution of agencies across the EU. The treaties of the European Union outline the locations of the following