Amsterdam – At the end of the line, Netherlands’ capitol city won with a ‘coin toss’ the EMA assignment over Milan at the very final rush, with just 502 votes for, 112 against and 37 abstained from the European Parliament session.
It has been a tough race though, conditioned by the big delays encountered by the dutch city in the set-up of the selected location, the Vivaldi Building that as of today still is in the project phase and no brick has been laid yet in the building site. The City of Milan’s plans to host EMA headquarters in the previous Regional Administrative building of the region, the “Pirellone” (Pirelli Building) were not accepted despite of appeal presented by it mayor to the Europarliament’s decision, also sustained by the Italian government.
Following the roadmap, Amsterdam will have to assure the temporary availability of Spark Building to host the EMA Headquarters not after the January 10th 2019, and grant the final destination of Vivaldi Building until November 16th, 2019, otherwise the EMA will have to “evaluate other alternatives”, with Milan waiting as the first in line.
A big hit for Amsterdam city and Netherland’s pharmaceutical industry, which sends a message to Italian government about the possibilities and strategical necessities to count more at the EMA roundtable, so as to give the Italian’s national pharmaceutical autorithy, the AIFA, a better and a more tempestive access to the pharmaceutical market and its innovations, also by contributing more to their development.
