That makes two more. On Monday 20 March, Belgium and Malta announced their wish to host the European Medicines Agency (EMA), once the United Kingdom has permanently left the European Union. These two countries are now on the long list of member states that are already candidates.
The EMA was set up in 1995 to take charge of the scientific assessment, supervision and monitoring of the safety of medicines marketed in the EU. It employs around 800 people of all EU nationalities, except Luxembourg and Malta. Its offices are located in London but are expected to be moving soon, given the United Kingdom’s announcement that it does not intend to be subject to decisions by the European Court of Justice.
At this stage, it is impossible to know which member states have formally submitted a request in this connection: the Commission is referring them to the EMA and the latter to the member states. According to The Guardian, Portugal, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Denmark and Spain have made an offer. Other foreign media sources have also mentioned Slovakia, Poland, France, Hungary and Bulgaria.
On 20 March, the Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, announced that federal and federated undertakings had reached an agreement to submit a demand for hosting the agency in the “Brussels region”. Malta added its request a few hours later. During a press conference at the informal Health Ministers’ meeting in Valetta, the President of the Maltese Medicines Authority, Anthony Serracino Inglott, accompanied by the Maltese Ministers for Health and Social Dialogue, indicated that their country also wanted to host the EMA.
The official launch of negotiations is expected to begin after 29 March, once the United Kingdom has triggered Article 50. The criteria for defining the location of the EMA headquarters have been in existence since 2012 (in EU agency rules), but they may have to be modified or supplemented in view of the unprecedented nature of the situation. According to our information, the European Commission has already set out a number of criteria for selecting the new host city but this has not yet been formalised in writing. These criteria are expected to involve accessibility and access to education for personnel, etc. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)