This week saw final confirmation that two EU bodies will indeed be leaving London. The European Medicines Agency, employing 890 staff in Canary Wharf, will be relocating to Amsterdam in 2019. The European Banking Authority, with 180 employees is moving to Paris.
This won’t have come as a surprise to many Leave campaigners. It was discussed before the referendum, since it’s pretty obvious that any agency that belongs to the EU institution would have to be located within a member state of the European Union. I can’t speak for any other Leave voter, but for me, after some considerable soul-searching, I felt it was a price worth paying in pursuit of the overall goal.
One expects that of those 890 EMA staff, a considerable number must be highly-skilled knowledge workers, the like of which we would be sad to see leaving the UK. So it came as a nice surprise to find out that 75% of them have indicated their desire to stay in the UK. This must have come as a shock to Brussels – to discover that even their own employees reject the opportunity to stay in an EU state, and instead wanted to embrace Brexit Britain. I can imagine that this is perceived as a gross act of treachery.
But still, it should still be regarded as an unfortunate aspect of leaving the EU, especially if one considers that the UK is losing over 1,000 tax-paying jobs. But wait… actually it turns out that these agency staff are in a privileged position of not paying tax in the UK – EMA’s own procedures confirm this. They are not just exempt from paying UK income tax, but local council tax also. I daresay there is justification for this, but bear in mind that they are able to make use of typical benefits such as schools and hospitals.
It is with some dismay that we found out earlier this year that the EMA had signed a long-term property lease on its London premises. In a demonstration of breathtaking ineptitude, it appears this was signed without an exit-clause, which means the EMA is liable to pay €400m over the next 20 years. Extraordinarily, although this agency is part of the EU, and the contractual liability rests with them, the EU has demanded that the UK pay for this lease.
Now although it’s understandable that the EU wishes the EMA to relocate, there is no compelling technical reason to do so. And so, a reasonable person would conclude that if the EU insists on taking this action, then so be it, it is their prerogative, but maybe they should take responsibility for their own resulting liabilities.
There is no doubt that there is a certain kudos in hosting high-profile agencies such as these, but is it such a source of huge regret to lose them?