August 7 was some day in European history. In Georgia, a war broke out. In Strasbourg, the ceiling of the main chamber of the European Parliament fell down.

Unlike in Georgia, there were no casualties in Strasbourg. No one was even in the chamber at the time - a not unusual sight. Only 12 times a year do hundreds of Brussels-based parliamentarians, aides, lobbyists and media people make the 430km trip to Strasbourg for a monthly plenary session of the legislature. The rest of the time, their base is the Belgian capital.

With the ceiling in ruins, parliament officials were obliged last week to hold the first plenary meeting of the new political season in Brussels. The next session, from September 22 to September 25, will also be staged in Brussels.

Dare one suggest that this arrangement should be made permanent? After all, the cost of decamping to Alsace once a month is estimated at €200m a year - not to mention all the extra CO2 emissions from the travel.

Some surveys suggest that more than 80 per cent of parliamentarians want one permanent home for their assembly, and that a similar majority want it to be Brussels. “As long as we have to travel to Strasbourg, people will rightly say that the EU is wasting money,” says Gary Titley, leader of the UK Labour party group.

But it isn’t going to happen, is it? No French government will give up the prestige and influence perceived to come from playing host to the legislature. From a French point of view, the beauty of Strasbourg as a location for a major EU institution is that the city not only symbolises Franco-German reconciliation but, nowadays, is emphatically French territory.

Besides which, the present arrangements for the parliament are written in EU treaty law and cannot be changed without the approval of all 27 member-states. Apparently, it’s not just the ceiling in Strasbourg that needs some repair work.

September 8, 2008 9:03am in European Parliament | Comment