European Parliament's wasted €200m

Once a month the European Parliament moves with all equipment and staff from Brussels to Strasbourg.

The cost of this is €200 million a year.

A number of Members of the European Parliament (MEP) have started an action to stop this ridiculous waste of taxpayers' money. They need one million signatures to be successful.

Within two days 25,000 signatures have been collected.

Today there are already over 500,000 signatures.

The facts are:

The European Parliament (EP) is the only assembly in the world that does not have a sole seat. The EP now spreads over nine main buildings in three cities in three founder member states of the former European Community: Luxembourg, France and Belgium.

All 732 MEPs have offices in both Strasbourg and Brussels. Secretariat staff have offices in Luxembourg or Brussels and share a smaller number of offices in Strasbourg.

Luxembourg holds 20 per cent and 2,000 offices. Brussels has 50 per cent and 3,000 offices, while Strasbourg holds 30 per cent and 2,200 offices of total surface area of EP buildings.

The cost of this is estimated to be 15 per cent of EP's budget. The main part of this sum is the costs of having 12 plenary sessions for 60 days a year in Strasbourg - 13 per cent of the total budget of the EP.

A study by Prof S. Hix (London School of Economics) shows that one-fourth of MEPs regularly fail to turn up for votes throughout the entire week-long plenary session. The worst attendees are the Italian, Portuguese and Irish MEPs. The most regular attendees are the Dutch, Greek and French MEPs. The new building has cost €457 million.

Before enlargement, 3,000 people travelled to Strasbourg from Brussels (a distance of 300 miles) for a week every month. With 10 new member states and over 100 new MEPs, this number has increased dramatically.

Before enlargement, the work time loss over these travels was estimated to be over €1 million. On the contrary, when meetings are held in Brussels, only 170 people travel in from Luxembourg.

Sixty days' costs of gas, water and electricity (GWE) for the building in Strasbourg is only 70 per cent of the yearly costs for GWE of the Brussels building.  

The lack of a single seat costs over €200 million a year. If the EP did its work in only one place it would save the €200 million.

Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of member states may take the initiative of inviting the Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Constitution. European laws shall determine the provisions for the procedures and conditions required for such a citizens' initiative, including the minimum number of member states from which such citizens must come.

You can vote for the initiative to abandon this practice on: http://www.oneseat.eu/