Malaga competes with eight other cities to become headquarters of European Customs Authority

Malaga is currently competing with eight other European cities for becoming the headquarters of the European Customs Authority. Mayor Francisco de la Torre is going to Brussels today, Wednesday, to present Malaga's proposal, which includes four possible locations for the future administrative offices. He is going to be accompanied by representatives of the Andalusian regional government and the central government, as well as by representatives of large Spanish companies.

The other candidate cities are Liège (Belgium), Lille (France), Zagreb (Croatia), Rome (Italy), The Hague (Netherlands), Warsaw (Poland), Porto (Portugal) and Bucharest (Romania).

The creation of the European Customs Authority is included in the proposal for the new EU customs code. This body, which will start operating in 2026, is part of the core legislation of the customs reform package presented by the European Commission on 17 May 2023.

The EUCA is linked to one of the core elements of this customs reform. It will be responsible for the creation, maintenance and management of a customs data hub - a single electronic system for customs procedures in the EU.

The European Customs Authority, which will employ some 250 people, will be responsible for the creation, maintenance and management of this specialised system.

Malaga's bid offers four possible locations, of which three are private office projects, currently under construction. Two of them, located next to Tabacalera and to the north of the Martiricos towers, are promoted by the Insur group. In the former case, work is scheduled for completion in January 2026. The latter is expected to be completed at the end of 2026.

Also included in the proposal is the office building that Merlin Properties, in alliance with the Nieto group, is building on Paseo de Antonio Machado. In this case, construction will not be completed until the fourth quarter of 2027.

The regional government and the city council have offered to cover the costs of renting, adapting and maintaining these buildings for six years for an amount of 12 million euros or two million euros per year. The city council is also open to purchasing all three office buildings if, for security reasons, the EU does not want to share space with other institutions or companies.

The fourth option is the construction of an 'ad hoc' building on a 2,680-square-metre site on Calle Pacífico, next to Calle Cañada del Tesoro. There, the EU could construct a building with a ground floor plus six, with a surface area of 8,819 square metres. This is the land that the city council initially reserved for a new headquarters for the social security treasury - a proposal which was ultimately rejected by the central government. Three years ago, the city council recovered this space, buying it from the state administration for 8,163,775 euros (it had previously sold it to them for 8,775,020 euros).