EU summit site to re-open Monday after noxious fume scare

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's new summit venue will re-open on Monday after noxious fumes put kitchen staff in hospital and forced the evacuation of the whole building on Friday. The incident occurred at the Europa Building, which opened in January amid some controversy over its cost, just across from the European Commission headquarters. The Council of the EU said later in the day that all systems had been cleaned and a crunch summit next Thursday and Friday with British Prime Minister Theresa May would go ahead as planned. "We expect to re-open the Europa building on Monday. Meetings will resume as scheduled and our plans for next week's European Council meeting remain unchanged," it said in a statement. Some 20 kitchen staff were treated in hospital after breathing in fumes produced by a chemical reaction between two industrial cleaning products. Almost all of them were back home after a medical check-up. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Larry King)