One Canada Square in London currently hosts the European Banking Authority (Picture: AP)

The European Union will move its banking headquarters to Paris after Brexit, it was decided today.

Officials decided on where to move the major EU agency today, as well as picking Amsterdam for the European Medicines Agency.

They drew lots in both cases after voting didn’t produce a winner.

Both agencies are currently located in Canary Wharf, employing hundreds of people who will now be asked to locate to elsewhere in Europe.


It is one of the first concrete indications of how leaving the EU will affect the UK in terms of jobs.

And again with Paris and the EBA. It's like the highest stakes version of the Champions League draw you've ever seen pic.twitter.com/nBN05bcTuA — Mehreen (@MehreenKhn) November 20, 2017

Paris tied with Dublin in the third vote and the Estonian chairman of the meeting then picked the winner out of a bowl.



Frankfurt, a leading EU financial centre which is home to the European Central Bank, lost out in the race at an earlier stage.

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Italian authorities were upset to lose out on hosting the EMA, by a lucky dip in the end.

‘It’s like losing a final on penalties,’ Italy’s EU affairs minister Sandro Gozi told reporters, adding that it had left a ‘bitter taste in the mouth’ for a bid that was not behind at any stage.

He rejected, however, talk of ‘betrayal’ among any allies who had promised Milan support before the secret ballot.

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