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Eurocrats get a taste of euro-feeling

As another Strasbourg trek begins, nigel horne finds public outrage is growing

This weekend, 732 European members of parliament, along with assistants, civil servants and lorry-loads of their beloved paperwork, will leave Brussels to spend a week, at vast expense to taxpayers, in Strasbourg. All because it was decided back in the 1960s that while the administrative centre of Europe should be in Brussels, the seat of parliament should be nearly 300 miles away in France.

But the June trek occurs against a background of growing public opinion that the so-called "Strasbourg circus", estimated to add €200m to our overall yearly euro-bill, should cease. An online petition launched five weeks ago has already received half a million signatories. There are hopes it will hit its target of one million before the EU's summer recess begins on July 13.
Scroll through The First Post's graphic showing the mad trek to Strasbourg in detail
How to end the trek
Ici Londres by Dan Hannan MEP

And there's more good news - the emergence of the first EU Commissioner ever to call for the unseating of Strasbourg.

Margot Wallstrom (left), the Communications Commissioner, used her weblog to say: "One can understand and respect the historical background for choosing Strasbourg as the location for the European Parliament. But today the practical problems - and costs - connected with having two sites is overshadowing the symbolic value of it."

The Strasbourg seat has been enshrined in the EU treaty since 1992 and only a unanimous vote of member countries could overturn it. But the French consider the location not just a matter of national prestige, but a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation.

The MEPs behind the petition hope that public outrage will force a rethink. Optimists wonder if the French might one day accept a trade-off - lose the seat of parliament but gain, say, some sort of centre of excellence or research that would take away the pain of hurt pride and keep Strasbourg's office space - and restaurants - full.

FIRST POSTED JUNE 9, 2006