Location of European Union Institutions - European Parliament

European Parliament

The Parliament is bound to spend "twelve periods of monthly plenary sessions, including the budget session" in Strasbourg, while additional sessions and committees are in Brussels. The secretariat is in Luxembourg. While the split arrangements for other bodies have relatively little impact, the large number of members of the Parliament and its concentration of work load means that these issues are far more contentious than those surrounding the other institutions. A democratic question has also been raised in the European Parliament being one of the few parliaments in the world which cannot decide its own meeting place, and also being the only parliament to have more than one seat.

Critics have described the three-city arrangement as a "travelling circus" with a cost an extra 200 million euro over a single location. Defenders of the Strasbourg seat, like the MEP for Germany Bernd Posselt, however claim that the figure is rather a mere 40 million euro, i.e. an extra cost of 8 cents per EU citizen. When Parliament was forced to meet in Brussels in September 2008, due to a fault in the Strasbourg building, it was estimated that Parliament saved between €3 and 4 million, though the exact figure is hard to calculate. As the Commission also meets in Strasbourg when Parliament is out of Brussels, the cost of Commissioners moving amounted to €9.5 million between 2002 and 2007. The Green party has also noted the environmental cost in a study led by Jean Lambert, MEP and Caroline Lucas, MEP; in addition to the extra financial cost, there are over 20,268 tonnes of additional carbon dioxide, undermining any environmental stance of the institution and the Union. Jens-Peter Bonde, former leader of the ID group, stated in 2007 that unless the issue of the seat was tackled, it would be impossible to increase the election's turnout, as the movement of the seat was the issue raised by voters most often. He, along with Green co-leader Monica Frassoni, called for a debate on the issue, which was being blocked by President Hans-Gert Pöttering.

The trips between the cities are seen by the public as "a money-wasting junket hugely enjoyed by journalists, MEPs and researchers" when in fact it is "a money-wasting junket loathed by journalists, MEPs and researchers" according to Gary Titley, MEP (PES), who announced he would not be standing for re-election in 2009 because of the two-seat issue. Titley stated that he could "no longer tolerate the shifting of the Parliament lock, stock and barrel to Strasbourg one week a month...It's a miserable journey and it's always a problem" noting the problems in lost luggage. As well as undermining the EU's climate change objectives, he criticises the Strasbourg sessions as the deals have already been made leading to them becoming formal voting sessions padded out with "debates saying we are against sin." Titley also states that, because the journeys take so much time, the committees in Brussels who do the bulk of the work do not have sufficient time to work. Titley is not the only one to leave over the issue; Eluned Morgan MEP is standing down in 2009 for similar reasons, notably due to the toll the moving has on time with her family, and former MEP Simon Murphy quit as leader of the Socialists in 2002 due to the inconvenience of the arrangement.