Paris, Amsterdam Brexit winners as coin toss assigns EU agencies

While highly political, the process for picking the new homes of the two agencies was given a veneer of objectivity through criteria that the EU fixed for the applications

France and the Netherlands won the contests to host two London-based European Union agencies in the first concrete political victories in the battle for Brexit spoils.

The EU’s banking authority will move to Paris and the medicines regulator will relocate to Amsterdam by the time Britain departs from the 28-nation bloc in March 2019. The two cities emerged victorious against a slew of other candidates after a series of secret ballots by EU governments on Monday in Brussels. In each case, a drawing of lots after a tie in the third and last round was needed to reach a final