Back to Brussels Blog homepageA big and rather heavy parcel arrived in the Brussels office last week.
It contained three weighty tomes - including Norman Davies’ 1,365 page work ”Europe a History.” Also in the box were three discs, two large, glossy picture books and two brochures - all linked to the western Polish city of Wroclaw.
The package came from Poland and promotes the city, which is vying to host a new EU agency - the European Institute of Technology.
Evidently, national pride and political prestige is at stake when choosing the location of new EU bodies (countries are due to decide on the EIT this week).
If a country secures an EU agency, politicians can tell voters that they won something for them in Brussels. This is even though the EIT concept has been much watered down, under pressure from big, rich member states such as the UK, and the headquarters will employ just 60 people.
Brussels hopes that the institute will turn more high-tech discoveries into money-spinning products and help Europe close the innovation gap with rivals such as the US and Japan.
Poland is competing with Spain, Hungary and an Austrian-Slovak alliance to house the EIT. The chosen area will hope to gain fresh investment, as well as boost its high-tech industry credentials.
All the candidates have lobbied in Brussels ( you wonder how many of these Polish packages have been sent). Barcelona’s bid gave ministers and diplomats an iPod with videos of its site.
The campaigning reminds me of a Finnish-Italian spat in late 2003 over the location of a new EU food safety agency. Here’s a teaser from the story that my colleagues wrote at the time…
Plans for the location of a dozen new European agencies have stalled, thanks to an epic tussle involving the merits of Parma ham.
Matti Vanhanen, Finnish prime minister, vowed this week to block a deal on the siting of the European Union bodies covering areas from satellites to police training - until he resolves a battle with Italy over a new food safety agency.
The dispute has become a question of national pride, with Mr Vanhanen insisting his country has the perfect facilities for the food agency.
But Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister, has blocked the transfer of EU staff to Helsinki for almsot two years, claiming the agency should be based in Parma.
“The Finns don’t even know what prosciutto is, “Mr Berlusconi famously stormed at a summit in 2001.
Read more here.
Italy won the agency, by the way…
I have been the FT's Brussels bureau chief since September 2007 and was previously the bureau chief in Frankfurt and Rome. In this blog you'll find my thoughts on everything from the European Union's foreign and economic policies to the fortunes of its political leaders - as well as the more light-hearted aspects of life in Europe.
