Brexit: 23 Cities Offer To Host UK-Based EU Agencies

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The European Council has received 27 proposals by the member states, related to 23 cities, to host the EU agencies currently based in the UK. There have been 19 offers to host the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and 8 for the European Banking Authority (EBA). All offers are available on the website of the European Council.

The two agencies will need to be relocated in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. The future locations need to be decided by common agreement of the EU27 member states. On June 22, 2017, in the margins of the European Council (Article 50), the EU27 leaders endorsed a specific procedure for this decision. The first step was the submission of offers by the member states by July 31, 2017.

European Medicines Agency

These are the cities proposed to host the EMA, as on August 1, 2017:

Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Athens (Greece)
Barcelona (Spain)
Bonn (Germany)
Bratislava (Slovakia)
Brussels (Belgium)
Bucharest (Romania)
Copenhagen (Denmark)
Dublin (Ireland)
Helsinki (Finland)
Lille (France)
Milan (Italy)
Porto (Portugal)
Sofia (Bulgaria)
Stockholm (Sweden)
Malta (Malta)
Vienna (Austria)
Warsaw (Poland)
Zagreb (Croatia)

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in the EU. The EMA is essential to the functioning of the single market for medicines in the EU.

European Banking Authority

These are the cities proposed to host the EBA, as on August 1, 2017:

Brussels (Belgium)
Dublin (Ireland)
Frankfurt (Germany)
Paris (France)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Luxembourg-City (Luxembourg)
Vienna (Austria)
Warsaw (Poland)

The European Banking Authority (EBA) works to ensure effective and consistent prudential regulation and supervision across the European banking sector. Among other tasks, the EBA assesses risks and vulnerabilities in the EU banking sector through regular risk assessment reports and EU-wide stress tests.

Assessment criteria

The applications will be assessed on the basis of six criteria agreed by the 27 member states:

  • guarantees that the agency will be operational when the UK leaves the EU
  • accessibility of the location
  • schools for the children of the staff
  • access to the labour market and health care for the employees’ families
  • business continuity
  • geographical spread

Next steps

The Commission will publish an assessment of the offers based on the agreed criteria by September 30, 2017. Ministers will have a political discussion based on the Commission’s assessment in October 2017 in the margins of the General Affairs Council (Art. 50).

The decision will be taken in the margins of the General Affairs Council (Art.50) in November 2017 by a vote of the 27 ministers. All offers will be submitted to the vote unless they are withdrawn by the countries concerned. The vote will consist of successive voting rounds as needed, with the votes cast by secret ballot and each of the 27 member states having the same number of votes.

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