With a flurry of glossy brochures, slick videos, enticing financial offers and risible boasts, the competition to snaffle away London’s two prize EU agencies has begun.



A full list of the runners and riders for the spoils of Brexit was published by the European council on Tuesday after the midnight deadline.

Nineteen countries have officially lodged an application to host the European Medicines Agency, once the UK leaves the bloc in March 2019. Eight are chasing the European Banking Authority.

Some have hired PR agencies to craft their bids, some have enlisted their prime ministers to take part in Eurovision-style promotional videos. Others appear to have put in a bare minimum of effort, perhaps just happy to be in the race. A mere six member states – Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Hungary, Lithuania and Latvia – have decided not to bother.

The EU agencies, both currently based in Canary Wharf, east London, offer prestige to their host and an influx of high-spending visits from officials and experts. Britain has been given no option on keeping the organisations, home to about 1,000 staff and 40,000 visitors a year, despite some demurring by the Brexit secretary, David Davis. The British government is, however, expected to stump up the bill for the removal costs.

Among the more tongue-in-cheek efforts is the claim that Amsterdam is the right choice for the EMA given certain shared national characteristics with the British. “We are not that different,” the narrator of its official video says. “We also have a very stylish Queen and enjoy fish and chips. Besides our grasp of your language is outstanding.”

The Czech Republic is offering staff who work in the EBA free entry to 24 local museums for five years and unlimited access to Prague zoo while the Polish bid for the EBA suggests its food is its “best kept secret”. Vienna’s tap water is said to be the highest-quality mountain spring water and the city is also boasting of its status as the only major capital with a “significant wine-growing industry”.

Milan boasts about its 17,000 restaurants and Sweden reminds the world it is the source of the Nobel prize for science and medicine as well as Ikea, Spotify and Skype.

A perusal of the formal applications suggest there has also been something of bidding war on the rent that will be charged to the agencies when they move out of the UK. Paris’s offer of putting up €1.5m to cover all or part of the EBA’s lease is made to look miserly by the Irish, who are offering a €78m sweetener including €15m in year one for the EMA alone.

The Irish bid to host the banking agency suggests they will cover 50% up the rent for 10 years to a value of €13.5m. The Duchy of Luxembourg, however, says it would offer up a swanky new building rent free – for a period to be negotiated.

In the past, decisions on the location of agencies have been made behind closed doors, and prompted huge arguments resolved only through trades and stitch-ups. This time, however, member states have devised clear rules for the competition, in an attempt to avoid a desperate squabble among the EU27 at the same time as the Brexit negotiations.

The European commission will assess each bid by the end of next month on criteria such as accessibility of the location, the quality of local schools for official’s children, and the availability of jobs for accompanying family members.

The possibility of there being seamless continuity in the agencies work is also to be considered, as is the particularly contentious issue of the geographic spread of agencies, something emphasised by bids from eastern European member states, where major agencies are currently few in number. EU leaders will discuss the competition in October and there will be what has been billed in Brussels as a Eurovision Song Contest-style vote by ministers in November.

Each country can give three votes for its first preference, two for the second and one for its third. Any bid securing three points from 14 or more member states will be declared the victor. If the threshold is not met, there will be a second round for the top three cities. Each country gets only one vote. If there is still no winner there will be a knock-out between the two final candidates. While six countries have gone all out and bid for both agencies, under the rules they cannot be awarded to the same country.

There are, however, bound to be political factors at play. Paris’s bid is conspicuously fronted by the new EU poster boy, and defeater of the eurosceptic far-right, president Emmanuel Macron.

The ambassador of Luxembourg to the EU, George Friden, whose country is bidding for the EBA on the basis of its strong financial sector, also appeared to suggest on Tuesday that alliances may be sought among the member states, and their representatives in Brussels as the process develops. “Obviously we meet each other all the time and ambassadors are having coded conversations: how is your dossier doing,” he said. “We are at that stage – the getting-to-know-the-competition stage. We are not at the stage of [seeking] support.”