It has formidable negotiating skills, at least according to its cheerleaders. It has huge economic clout. And it can impose its will on companies and rival governments. Given that we have heard so much over the last few years about the immense influence of the European Union you might have thought that a small matter like renting out an office block in London would be simple. But hold on. It turns out the EU will be stuck with a bill for hundreds of millions of euros for the buildings it abandoned in the UK – and its own pettiness is entirely to blame.

It is a lot of money and is likely to blow a big hole in the budget of the medicines agency

According to reports this week, the EU faces charges of up to €450 million (£387 million) after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) quit its headquarters in Canary Wharf. The building was originally sub-let to the shared office space giant WeWork, but now that it has gone bankrupt it is back on the market. The trouble is, office space in Canary Wharf is about as popular as the former Post Office boss Paula Vennells right now. With the rise of working from home, the big banks and law firms are handing back their keys and moving to offices that are smaller, cheaper, and closer to the centre of town. The chances of the EMA finding a new tenant are close to zero.

The result? It is now on the hook for €30 million (£26 million) a year in rent and bills, and since the lease runs until 2039 the total bill could be 15 times higher. It is, in other words, a lot of money, and is likely to blow a big hole in the budget of the medicines agency. And yet, this is a mess entirely of the EU’s own making. When the UK voted to leave, the EU could have decided that it was fine for the Medicines Agency to remain in London, at least until the EMA could either find a new long-term tenant, or else haggle out a compromise with the landlord that allowed it to leave a little earlier.

Instead, it stalked off in a huff, determined that it was impossible for its staff to carry on working in a ‘traitor country’. The bill for that kind of pettiness is now falling due, and it is a very large one. The UK did not win many victories in the Brexit process, and ended up paying far more than it probably should have done to get out of the Union. Still, the €30 million a year collected on an empty office building in Canary Wharf is a small win – and one that can only be blamed on the small-mindedness of the EU officials that decided to abandon it.