Current headquarters of the European Medicines Agency
The decision on the relocation of the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency from London has been postponed until the General Affairs Council meeting in November, when the winning country will be decided by vote, according to an internal document quoted by Politico.eu.
Romania obtained an extra month to persuade that it meets the selection criteria and the newly appointed government to obtain enough diplomatic credibility to support the arguments in support to the candidacy for the relocation of the European Medicines Agency to which it applies.
The European Council approved on Thursday a new selection procedure in Brussels, which increases the political importance of the decision, according to the source quoted.
The new procedure for selecting the AEB and AEM locations „might be more unfavourable to candidates such as Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Cyprus and Slovakia.” These countries, like 15 other member states that do not host any European authority, have expressed their interest in becoming the location of one of the two agencies that relocate from London.
The criteria for selecting the new locations of the two agencies are:
- Ensuring the normal functioning of the institution as early as the day that follows the exit of the UK from the EU
- Accessibility of the new location
- Appropriate education facilities for the employees’ children
- Access to the labour market for the spouse of the Agency’s employee
- Enough hotel accommodation capacities for visitors
- Providing office and conference spaces and separate storage/archiving spaces
- Appropriate geographical distribution of agencies
- The host state’s availability to support the full or partial payment of the rent.
On May 31, the Government mandated SGG to urgently start the procedure for selecting the building that would host the AEM and for concluding an agreement in principle with the developer to book the building until the selection of the host city for the Agency would be completed.
At the same time, the Government established by a memorandum the allocation of EUR 30,000 from the 2017 budget of the Ministry of Health, to develop a strategy to promote Romania’s candidacy to the relocation of the European Medicines Agency.
The application file must be submitted by 31 July.
Details
The accessibility of the location implies the frequency and duration of flights from all the European capital cities, as well as the frequency and duration of the public transportation from the airport of the host capital city to the Agency.
For example, in the case of the European Medicines Agency, the availability is required for:
- Hotel accommodation capacities for 30,000 nights annually
- Accommodation for the Agency staff (890 members in 2015)
- Offices of 27,000 square meters
- Facilities for meetings for about 36,000 visitors (564 conferences in 2015) and teleconferences (4,273)
- Archiving spaces of 600 sqm and 9 m high
