It will be Luxembourg that will have the final say on Brussels versus Strasbourg, now that Paris has decided to sue under Lisbon.
In other words, the fight over the seat of the European Parliament has suddenly become a full-blown EU inter-institutional brawl.
The French government on Tuesday decided to take the European Parliament to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg after parliamentarians last week decided to tweak the terms of their regular commute between Brussels and Strasbourg. Paris claims the move violates the EU’s new Lisbon treaty, its governing constitution.
For those new to the story, the European Parliament is divided between its Brussels-based home, where it does most of its business, and Strasbourg, where treaties say it has to hold a monthly plenary session. (Just to add to the confusion, its secretariat is in Luxembourg.)
Parliamentarians not hailing from France dislike the trek, which is time-consuming, expensive, and harks back to an era when Franco-German relations were at the heart of the EU.
A recent attempt to shelve the Strasbourg commute altogether in favour a permanent Brussels home failed when France reminded MEPs that the monthly Strasbourg plenary is enshrined in the EU’s constitution.
MEPs backed down, until a die-hard cadre of Strasbourg opponents had a close look at the text in question and thought it left room to cut out at least one Alsatian plenary a year. At the heart of the ploy is a replacement plenary held in September or October to compensate for a cancelled-due-to-holidays August meeting. That leaves two plenaries held in a single month in the autumn, which the rebel MEPs have now fused, forming one mega-plenary week. Even the proponents of the measure admit it is exploiting a loophole.
As in all good legal battles, the opposing side has upped the ante. France says the text is clear that the monthly schlep is mandatory, and announced Tuesday that it would make good on its threat to bring the matter to court.
“Guaranteed by the treaties, the seat of the parliament at Strasbourg is the concrete representation of a Europe close to its citizens and proud of its symbols,” the foreign ministry proclaimed in a statement.
“Just when the powers of the European parliament have been considerably bolstered by the Lisbon treaty, merging two sessions into one week amounts to impeding the parliament’s work,” it adds.
The European Court typically takes years to render a verdict, so don’t expect the parliament’s decision to be reversed quickly – not in time for 2012, at any rate.
The French remain resolute in their defence of Strasbourg, pointing out that losing the half-seat of the parliament would leave them with no major EU institutions, and would be an economic disaster for the city. Though they are increasingly isolated on the issue, there is no way anyone can make them budge. The French government has weathered plenty of anti-Strasbourg storms before, diplomats point out.
Either way, the impact of the court will be limited to deciding on a single scrapped commute, rather than the whole question of the Brussels-vs-Strasbourg row. But that already would be a symbol – exactly the thing that Europe is proud of, if you believe the French statement today.
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