During the exchange, MEPs will ask the candidates to explain their infrastructure plans and to demonstrate their capacity to support a centralised authority in the context of an ever more complex trade environment.

In total, nine cities have responded to the call for applications and presented their bids. They are:

• Liège, Belgium
• Málaga, Spain
• Lille, France
• Zagreb, Croatia
• Rome, Italy
• The Hague, Netherlands
• Warsaw, Poland
• Porto, Portugal
• Bucharest, Romania

European Commission has already assessed their applications. Now the European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection will hold a Q&A session with representatives of the candidate cities. This is an important step in the internal parliamentary procedure, allowing MEPs to properly scrutinise, evaluate and compare the candidacies ahead of the internal vote on Parliament’s preferred location.

You can watch the debate here. More information will be available on the committee website.

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