Af­ter un­ex­pect­ed tie, Am­s­ter­dam wins 'coin toss' for new EMA HQ

Well, that was un­ex­pect­ed. The EU’s third and fi­nal vote on the new lo­ca­tion of the Eu­ro­pean Med­i­cine Agency tied be­tween Mi­lan and Am­s­ter­dam, with Am­s­ter­dam win­ning the prover­bial coin toss tie-break­er (EU of­fi­cials drew the city’s name out of a bowl).

The re­sults may sur­prise those fol­low­ing the first two vot­ing rounds close­ly, as Mi­lan came in the lead on the pre­vi­ous ses­sions. Both cities ranked ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly well on the EMA’s score­card, with the lo­ca­tions es­pe­cial­ly pop­u­lar with the agency’s 900-per­son staff. The EMA said ear­li­er this month that 65% or more of its staff would be will­ing to re­lo­cate to both Mi­lan and Am­s­ter­dam. Ac­cord­ing to a staff sur­vey in Sep­tem­ber, Am­s­ter­dam would woo the most EMA staffers to re­lo­cate, while Mi­lan ranked fourth.

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