Battle Intensifies to Host London-Based EU Agencies After Brexit

(Bloomberg) -- The contest among more than 20 European Union cities to host the bloc's drugs regulator and banking authority, which are being forced from London by Brexit, heated up on Saturday with an official assessment of the bids.

The evaluation of applications by 19 cities ranging from Stockholm to Bucharest seeking to lure the European Medicines Agency and of eight offers -- including from Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt -- for the European Banking Authority sets the stage for deliberations by EU governments in October and a final decision in November.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, published the assessment based on criteria including accessibility, availability of schools and healthcare for staff families, and an assurance of operational readiness when Britain leaves in March 2019. The commission stopped short of a ranking, leaving more scope for political bargaining by the U.K.'s 27 EU partners.

“The assessment is fully based on the information sent by the member states,” the Brussels-based commission said in a statement on its website. “The agencies have also been consulted in the process.”

The campaign to woo the EMA and EBA is part of a battle for the Brexit spoils and feeds into a long EU tradition of intense maneuvering by member nations for the political and economic rewards that come with hosting pieces of Europe's extensive regulatory machinery.

Bid Summaries

The EMA, which evaluates applications for new drugs and oversees the safety of medicines, employs about 900 people and attracts 36,000 visitors a year to London from government, science and industry. The EBA works to align banking rules in the EU and has fewer than 200 employees.

The commission's evaluation includes summaries of the two sets of bids in grid form with factual comments in bullet-point style under each of the criteria.

For example, regarding Sweden's application for the EMA, the commission said in the accessibility column that “the offer indicates the availability of direct flights between Stockholm and 23 EU capitals, with a frequency ranging from three to 141 flights per week” and the availability of 35,000 hotel rooms in the region “ranging from large well-known hotel chains to small family hotels.” Stockholm also advertised a 20-minute public transport connection between the airport and the central train station, according to the summary.

For Romania's offer, the commission said the bid shows the availability of direct flights between Bucharest and 23 EU capitals, connecting flights to the bloc's remaining capitals and a frequency ranging from two to 14 flights a day, plus a public-transport connection from the airport to the proposed premises of “less than 16 minutes.” As for hotel space, the Bucharest offer mentions 10,000 “existing hotel rooms, ranging from exclusive hotels to mid-range accommodation.”

One of the criteria fixed for the commission's evaluation is “geographical spread,” which touches on the highly political question of balance among the northern, southern, eastern and western parts of Europe when it comes to the location of EU agencies.

On that count, the bids for the EMA by Helsinki, which already hosts the European Chemicals Agency; Copenhagen, home of the European Environment Agency; and Stockholm, where the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control is located, are long shots regardless of how suitable the cities might be from a technical point of view.

By contrast, Bucharest, which is home to no EU agency and is the capital of a medium-sized member state that joined the bloc relatively recently, may have a strong political hand when it comes to the city's bid for the EMA.

In addition to Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt, the bidders for the EBA include Brussels, Prague, Luxembourg, Vienna and Warsaw.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Jon Menon