EU Agencies' relocation: what can we learn from failure?

Our Miroslava Pěčková in her newest piece deals with the issue of relocation of the two European agencies that are going to be leaving London as a consequence of Brexit. Both Prague and Bratislava had an imminent interest in hosting these agencies, it was EMA (European Medicines Agency), in the case of Bratislava, and EBA (European Bank Authority) in the case of Prague. Why neither of them succeeded is a topic elaborated by Mirka.

Even though lately Slovakia seems to be the most promising partner for the western EU countries out of the entire Visegrad group, it still does not evoke enough trust. Other European Union member states simply do not see Slovakia as a suitable country from a European values-perspective.

However, it is important to understand that an arrival of such agency comes also with its already-employees and therefore it is essential that their future host is a country where these people themselves want to live. In the case of Slovakia, the disadvantages ranged from insufficient infrastructure to disregard of homosexual marriage under law.

Indeed, this kind of failure of not becoming hosts to one of these European agencies should not offend us. Exactly the opposite, Bratislava and Prague should take this as an impulse for an inner reflection and evaluation of how could they become trustworthy partners for their EU counterparts.

Full article is available here.