Luxembourg has failed in its bid to host the EU’s new Cybersecurity Competence Centre. In a vote that had to enter a second round on Wednesday evening, Bucharest in Romania emerged victorious over six other candidate cities.

According to the European Parliament, the new centre will aim to “improve and strengthen the EU's cybersecurity capacity, by stimulating the European technological and industrial cybersecurity ecosystem as well as coordinating and pooling necessary resources in Europe.” It is initially expected to host around 30 staff, increasing to 80 in subsequent years

The European Commission first announced plans for the centre in 2018 and funded pilot projects to test how the new centre would operate. In the foreword to the Luxembourg bid, prime minister Xavier Bettel and foreign minister Jean Asselborn had said that the grand duchy “has become a perfectly connected digital hub of the European Union” and played on its “vibrant, open and inclusive national cybersecurity ecosystem”. They also cited Luxembourg’s experience as a host of European and international organisations.

Competition came from another host of numerous EU institutions, Brussels, as well as Léon in Spain, which was cited as an early favourite to land the institution, Munich, Warsaw, and Vilnius

In a first round of voting among EU ambassadors on Wednesday evening, Brussels garnered eight votes and Bucharest got six, taking them into a second vote. Luxembourg only managed to get three votes, with Vilnius scoring five, Warsaw and León got two each and Munich only got one vote.

Bucharest then beat Brussels by 15 votes to 12 in the second round.

In an article in Emerging Europe, Romania’s representative on the EU Telecom Council, Alexandru Nazare, was cited as saying that his country was the first member state to publicly announce an interest in hosting the new centre. “And above all we are the only country in this competition who does not host any European agency or body.”