by Maria Vasileiou
THE HAGUE, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Determined to carry out a European Union (EU) decision to move the block's medicines agency from London to Amsterdam after Brexit, the Dutch government insists the selection process was "fair and square" despite Italy's legal bid to overturn the outcome.
"The Netherlands was chosen as the new home ground for EMA fair and square, based on a procedure agreed upon by all member states. Every step we take in the relocation project is in close cooperation with the European Medicines Agency (EMA)," Dutch minister of Health Bruno Bruins told Xinhua.
Earlier this month Italy and the city of Milan, which narrowly lost the tender, appealed to the European Court of Justice (EUJ), claiming that the voting procedure was not appropriate and the decision was taken on the basis of incorrect information.
EU ministers opted for Amsterdam in the third and final vote last November. In late January, EMA director Guido Rasi said that the new accommodation in Amsterdam won't be finished on time during a presentation of the relocation project organized by the Dutch health ministry in the Hague.
According to the Dutch plan, the EMA will be moved into temporary premises in 2019 and into its permanent building in 2020, a situation the agency's director said was "not optimal".
The temporary premise was not the same as the one included in the bid book submitted by the Netherlands. It has only half the space compared with the current premises in London and the organization's staff still have to use external meeting facilities, according to Rasi.
"A temporary office building was always part of our bid. The building we have now selected is completely functional with office spaces for all employees and ready to use conference facilities at the same location. And next to that we are constructing a brand new building. This new building is especially designed for the EMA and will meet EMA's requirements for decades to come," Bruin told Xinhua.
HOSTING EU AGENCIES BRING ECONOMIC BENEFITS
Two EU agencies based in London, the EMA and the European Banking Authority (EBA) which coordinates banking rules and regulations for the bloc, should be relocated to another EU member state by March 30, 2019, the date when Britain leaves the EU. Eight cities had applied for hosting the EBA which employs some 100 people. Paris won the bid.
Ninteen cities had bid to host the EMA. As one of the EU's biggest institutions, the medicines agency has an annual budget of over 300 million euros and employs around 900 people.
"All countries would like to host EU agencies, especially the EMA, which is of particular economic interest," said Thomas Christiansen, Chair in European Institutional Politics at Maastricht University. Apart from its highly qualified staff, the EMA also means business with its meetings and conferences, which attract medical industry representatives from all over Europe.
European Commission assessed bidding cities mainly on six criteria including transport links, availability of schools for the children of the agency's employees and organization for a smooth move.
Earlier last week, Commission's spokesperson Alexander Winterstein said the Commission had "very clear procedures in place for how information submitted" was to be assessed.
He stressed that EU countries "had all the information they needed" when they took the decision on where to move the agency. But he also said that France and the Netherlands were the only two candidate countries which asked "for certain parts of the information submitted to be treated confidentially".
A draft law on the relocation must now pass through the European Parliament (EP). The legislative file is to be put to a vote in the EP's environment committee on March 12 and in plenary session the same week.
Last week EP president and political group leaders decided to send a fact-finding mission to Amsterdam, led by rapporteur on the relocation Giovanni La Via, an Italian MEP. The delegation will visit the temporary location and the future headquarters for the EMA.
