The European Council meeting of heads of government on 13 December 2003 agreed on how to distribute EU agencies among the Member States.
It was decided that a Community Fisheries Control Agency should be established as a matter of urgency, and the Agency would be based in Spain. In November 2003, EU countries had agreed in principle to establish a European Borders Management Agency by 01/2005 but no location has been decided yet. But the December Summit agreed that after enlargement in May 2004, priority would be given to a new Member State as a location for future EU agencies or offices. The Polish government has stated that because they will have the longest land border in the EU, Poland should be the logical site for the new Borders Agency.
Council Decision of 12/2000 to establish a European Police College (CEPOL) - will now be based in London.
Proposal of 10/2003 to create a European Chemicals Agency which will be based in Helsinki, Finland.
Proposal of 01/2002 to create a European Railway Agency which will have its seat in Lille/Valenciennes, France.
Decision of 07/2002 to create a European Aviation Safety Agency - to be situated in Cologne, Germany.
Council Decision of 01/2002 to establish a European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) will now be based in Parma, Italy.
Council Decision of 02/2002 to establish Eurojust has been allocated to the Hague, Netherlands.
Council Decision of 06/2002 to create the European Maritime Safety Agency. This will be based in Lisbon, Portugal.
The proposal of 08/2003 for a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) will be located in Sweden.
The European Network and Information Security Agency proposed in 02/2003 will be based in Greece.
The European Council meeting also decided that to extend the mandate of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna, Austria so that it becomes a Human Rights Agency.
However, the European Parliament has reservations about the system of EU agencies which are mostly designed to implement specialist technical aspects of European legislation where the Commission does not gave the appropriate skills.
A report by MEP Teresa ALMEIDA GARRETT (EPP-ED, P) states that among the 15 existing agencies, there are no fewer than 12 different operational structures and 10 types of administrative boards, which is neither transparent nor understandable.
The MEP calls for greater clarity based on whether they are ’decision-making’ agencies (i.e. with the power to enact legal instruments binding on third parties) or ’executive’ agencies (without that power).
Specifically, the Parliament states that agencies should only be created if they make financial sense (based on an external cost-benefit assessment) and that there should be ’sunset’ clauses if the tasks concerned may not be required indefinitely.
