The Member States’ representatives to the EU (Coreper) formally approved the procedure agreed with the European Parliament for selecting the headquarters of the future EU Customs Authority (EUCA) on Wednesday 25 February (see EUROPE 13812/18).
In November, nine Member States submitted their candidatures: Liège (for Belgium), Malaga (Spain), Lille (France), Zagreb (Croatia), Rome (Italy), The Hague (Netherlands), Warsaw (Poland), Porto (Portugal) and Bucharest (Romania) (see EUROPE 13762/20).
The EU Council and Parliament will each independently select two preferred candidate cities from the nine that applied, based on the assessment carried out by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13793/7). The two institutions will then meet to announce their choices. If a candidate appears on both shortlists, it will automatically be declared selected and no further voting will be required. If there is no overlap, the co-legislators will conduct a series of ballots to select a candidate.
The final decision will be taken on Wednesday 25 March, at an informal interinstitutional meeting at political level between the co-legislators.
Negotiations between the EU Council and Parliament on the reform of the Customs Code are continuing in parallel (see EUROPE 13780/13). (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)