http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2017/11/ema-relocation-and-winner-is.html
Voting has been taking place today by EU affairs ministers to decide the forum for the relocation of the European Medicines Agency. The results are in, and the winner is Amsterdam.
The Dutch have beaten off stiff competition from 18 other candidate cities in a complex voting procedure, where each member state had the same input as any other. Votes were cast by secret ballot, where it is reported that Milan had 12 votes, Amsterdam 9 and Copenhagen 5. When Copenhagen was knocked out, its votes went mostly to Amsterdam (feels a bit like Eurovision, no?)
At which point Amsterdam and Milan tied at 13-13. The final decision was taken by pulling a name out of a hat. Actually.
So how did Amsterdam do in the EMA’s relocation staff retention survey in September 2017? In summary, Amsterdam received a glowing “green” rating (meaning equal or greater than 65% staff retention). They also did well for location accessibility and access to labor market, medical care and social security. Detailed results of that survey can be found here.
The UK will say goodbye to 900 people who are employed by the EMA in London.
Congratulations to our Dutch friends – our loss is your gain!
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