A report by the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee says that the extra costs occasioned by the removal of seven European agencies at half a billion euro. These are costs that will have to be borne by companies forced to register their products and services in all countries where they do business.
The study is based on three scenarios of requirements for European companies if the seven European agencies are removed: the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the European Air Safety Agency (EASA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the European Banking Agency (EBA), the European Securities Markets Agency (ESMA) and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA). Of the seven agencies, EUIPO and EMA are fully self-financed.
The operating costs of 45 European agencies total €1.025 billion, 78 million of which comes from the EU budget (0.8% of the EU budget). In other words, the agencies cost 1.23 euros for each EU citizen, explained António Campinos, EUIPO’s managing director and acting chair of the network of European agencies.
The research shows that if member states were to cover the work of the seven agencies, the additional costs for national authorities would be in the range of 150 to 250 million euros (reference year 2015). The authors of the study point out that there wouldn’t be any net savings from this reduction in European financing for the agencies, there would actually be a net annual increase of around 72 to 122 million euro (150-200 million minus 78 million) noting that the extra costs would be due to the need to expand national agencies’ existing capacity or create new agencies.
The surcharges that would arise from the absence of the seven European agencies would be more serious for companies required to register their products and services everywhere where they do business in the Single Market. According to the study, these surcharges would total a billion euros, on top of which there would be other costs occasioned by the need to adapt products and services to meet national requirements. In addition, around 3,500 jobs in the seven European agencies would be lost or transferred from the host countries to other locations, such as Brussels, not to mention the loss of indirect jobs in, for example, event organisation. While the European Commission might take on some of the work of the scrapped agencies, the study notes that the European institution is already subject to budget restrictions that restrict its recruitment possibilities.
The European agencies were set up after a crisis in the sector in question. The mad cow crisis, for example, led to the creation of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). The study’s authors write that the creation of the agencies prevented or restricted new incidents and crises. Measuring the long-term savings arising from preventing new crises could be the subject of a new study, note the authors.
For the study, go to: http://bit.ly/2hgteMg (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)