European Union institutions currently based in London, but scheduled to relocate following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU, are coveted prizes for member states. EU members see these as an important source of new jobs, investment in the local economy and international stature. Hungary, however, is bucking the trend and is uninterested in attracting any EU institution from London to Budapest.
The EU is planning to move both the European Banking Authority with 159 employees, as well as the European Medicines Agency with 890 full-time staff and 36,000 visiting experts each year from London. According to a statement from the European Commission, Hungary did not submit a bid for the two institutions. Contenders from within the EU were asked on June 22nd to submit bids. They were requested to guarantee in their submission documents that the EU agencies would be fully operational in their new home by the time the UK formally exists the EU (likely in March 2019), that the proposed city be easily accessible by commercial flights, as well as good public transit to the airport, proper educational and public health programs be available for foreign staff who relocate to the given city, as well as a local labour market that could fill some of the vacancies, especially during the initial period of transition.
Of these requirements, Budapest would satisfy nearly all, except perhaps the last one–there is a severe labour shortage in Hungary in many sectors.
European Banking Authority offices in London.
Bids were due on July 31st and these will be evaluated by September 30th. A total of 23 member states submitted bids, including:
- Austria
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Italy
- Ireland
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Poland
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Spain
- Sweden
It is noteworthy that all of the Visegrád Countries, except for Hungary, submitted bids. One wonders if the Orbán regime feels that its relentless anti-EU rhetoric may have doomed any bid from the start.
