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iting a European Union law dating back to 1965, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel made his case in a letter to EU Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, the spokeswoman said.
Bettel’s letter is dated Wednesday (29 March), the same day that Britain’s own letter to Tusk officially notified the EU that the UK intended to leave the bloc.
“Luxembourg’s claim to host the EBA is nothing more than the implementation of this agreement that is still valid today,” the spokeswoman told AFP.
“We want the 1965 decision to be respected and therefore claim that the EBA’s new host should be Luxembourg.”[...]
Member states “are willing to locate in Luxembourg, or to transfer there, to other community bodies and departments, particularly those concerned with finance”, Bettel’s letter quoted the law as saying.
But media reports suggest that cities including Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, Paris and Vienna are also trying to woo the EBA away.
Germany’s powerful Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble last week said he would plead strongly to have the EBA based in Frankfurt.
Luxembourg believes that the 1965 law stipulates that any decision to locate an economic institution of the EU elsewhere than Luxembourg requires a special exception. [...]