EU's 40 AGENCIES - AND WHAT THEY ARE DOING


I have been asked, if there are more EU agencies than the ones I have written about recently, such as EUROPOL and EUROJUST in The Hague, ECDC ( European Centre for Decease Prevention and Control ) in Frölunda near Stockholm, FRONTEX in Warsaw, etc.



The answer is yes.  There are today altogether 40 different EU agencies. They are all part of the EU. And their headquarters are based in almost all member states. One of the first was the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen. It started in 1993.  Its purpose is to provide independent information and evaluations about environmental issues and in this way contribute actively to EU activities related to environment. The number of EU regulations and directives in this area is now about 500.



The purpose of all these EU agencies is like for the Copenhagen agency to provide information and analysis of importance to the work of the EU in many different fields. In some cases the agencies are also responsible for the practical implementation of EU’s work. It is like that for FRONTEX in Warsaw. It is responsible for the coordination of the protection of EU’s external borders. Another example is the GNSS agency in Prague. It is responsible for EU’s GALILEO project, the European global satellite navigation system, which is in operation, and is more precise than the American GPS.  And a third case in the EUROPEAN MEDICINS AGENCY in Amsterdam.  It treats and approves thousands of new medical products on behalf of all EU member states.  This agency was recently moved from London to Amsterdam because of Brexit.



The United Kingdom decided to leave the EU on January 31, 2020 and is consequently no longer a member of the EU agencies and cannot profit from their activities.



If you want to read more about all these decentralised and practical EU activities you can find the information here:


The map of Europe in the start of this website shows where the EU agencies are, and what they are called. And if you click on each of them you will get much more information.








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