4 reasons to end this Strasbourg farce - 2009-12-16

"This week, the parliament authorities in Strasbourg announced that another bit of plaster had fallen off the ceiling in one of the Parliament buildings while the MEPs were away last week.  Could this have fallen on someone's head?   

"The building was closed last year while they repaired a collapsed roof on the hemicycle. It has also had legionnaires disease here in the not too distant past, and there was asbestos in another part of the building recently. 

"But actually these are comparatively minor reasons that cause protests against the monthly trip by MEPs and their staff to Strasbourg. There are four far more important reasons why we should now stop this farce," said Leader of the Labour MEPs, Glenis Willmott.

1.  "While World Leaders are trying to save the planet in Copenhagen, the European Parliament is setting a terrible example by continuing the farce of travelling to Strasbourg every month.

"Governments should be seen to practice what they preach. It is a scandal to cause this totally unnecessary carbon footprint," she said.

The University of York have estimated a carbon footprint of an extra 20,268 tonnes of additional carbon dioxide caused by this move.     

2.  "As a result of the economic crisis, governments are asking everyone in the public sector to tighten their belts. At the moment, we are having a European civil servant strike as governments refuse their annual pay increase, and it looks terrible for politicians to continue this huge waste of public money." Estimates claim a cost of €206 million on the extra seat.    

3.  "Now is surely a good time to set a Treaty change in motion. We have finally just started to work with the new Lisbon Treaty to streamline our work after so many years of debate. Let's finally get the EU properly streamlined once and for all.  

"We call on the Spanish Presidency, which will start in January 2010, to set this in motion, working together with new permanent President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy," she said.

The monthly trip of MEPs from their usual place of work in Brussels to Strasbourg was agreed by EU governments as part of a protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam and is decided on by the Governments of the EU and not by MEPs.

4. "We only meet here for historic reasons. Strasbourg represented reconciliation between France and Germany, but that generation has more or less disappeared now. We are now the new Enlarged Europe and the significance of the end of Franco-German hostility is now consigned to history text books," she said.

Recently, over a million signatures were collected to the end "travelling circus" to Strasbourg.

Glenis Willmott concluded "Strasbourg is a truly fantastic city and there are endless uses for the revamped European Parliament building. It could perhaps be a centre for European Summits making use of its excellent interpretation facilities, or perhaps a new European University. There are a host of ideas. "

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