Flashback to April 2017 - FT Whoops.
London battles to keep hold of two main EU agencies
David Davis claims medicine and banking bodies will not have to leave Canary Wharf
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Britain is fighting to remain the home of two of the EU’s most prestigious agencies covering medicines and banking after Brexit, in a move that is likely to cause astonishment in European capitals.
David Davis, Brexit secretary, does not accept that the two agencies and roughly 1,000 staff will have to move from London’s Canary Wharf, even though the EU is about to run a competition to relocate them.
A UK Brexit department spokesman said: “No decisions have been taken about the location of the European Banking Authority or the European Medicines Agency — these will be subject to the exit negotiations.”
The government has left open the possibility of keeping part of some EU agencies, at least in the short term, but the idea of the UK hosting key institutions after Brexit is unacceptable in Brussels.
“The government will discuss with the EU and member states how best to continue co-operation in the fields of banking and medicines regulation in the best interests of both the UK and the EU,” the spokesman said.
Mr Davis may simply be putting the agencies into the wider Brexit negotiation in the expectation that they can be traded for a concession elsewhere; EU officials say there is no question they must move.
But Donald Tusk, European Council president, will this month set out the criteria for judging what will be an intensely fought competition over which city will replace London as the host of the agencies.
EU leaders are expected to discuss the new base for the agencies at a summit on April 29, where the 27 remaining member states will hammer out their Brexit strategy.
No decision will be made at that point, but Mr Tusk wants to lay the ground rules for deciding which city should host the agencies. Such contests have unleashed fierce national rivalries in the past. In 2001, then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi insisted that a new food standards agency should be based in Parma instead of Helsinki, saying: “The Finns don’t even know what prosciutto is.”
“The EMA and EBA both have to go to a member state,” an EU official said. “There are many interested member states. There is a broad understanding that it is something that you need to move quickly on.”
Asked whether there could be a decision by June, the official said: “That would be nice but I doubt it. You do not have to spend long here to know that these decisions are difficult to make.”
The EMA’s Canary Wharf headquarters hosts 36,000 national regulators and scientists each year from across the continent, who come to London to approve drugs for the EU. London’s 890-strong secretariat plays a central role in co-ordinating that work.
The EBA, which was set up in 2011, has 159 staff at its London office, also at Canary Wharf.
Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Milan, Stockholm, Barcelona and Dublin are all bidding to host the medicines agency and there may eventually be up to 20 applicants. The agency will not only bring highly skilled jobs to its new home but also act as a hub for the pharmaceutical industry and other research.
While European cities line up to bid for skilled work that is leaving London, John Longworth, the Eurosceptic former director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, has published a report saying that Brexit need not mean big delays at the border for goods passing between Britain and the EU.
The report, published by the Leave Means Leave campaign group, says efforts must be focused on using technology to create a “frictionless” border.
The report says businesses are “far more concerned” about customs clearance procedures within the UK and at the border with other countries than about any potential future tariffs with the EU.
Mr Longworth argues that, if necessary, customs checks could be carried out at a roadside station some distance away — or “inland clearance” — because ports such as Dover have little space to carry out checks.