A Battle That Makes Sense
- Brussels, 29 March 2012
1. ENORMOUS MAJORITY FOR SINGLE SEAT
MEPs have voted by an enormous majority (429-184 with 37 abstentions) for a Single Seat, the highest majority ever recorded. This reflects the economic and environmental costs of the controversial Brussels-Strasbourg arrangement. The European Parliament was voting on 29 March on the Vaughan report on Parliament’s estimates of revenue and expenditure for the financial year 2013.
In addition, the Parliament's Secretary-General was requested to provide an update on a 2002 Bureau note on the cost of maintaining three working places, before the summer recess.
2. SCHULZ FOR SINGLE SEAT
European Parliament President Martin Schulz has again called for a Single Seat for the European Parliament, although he states his preference for Strasbourg. He was being interviewed bySwedish public radio on the eve of key discussions by EU ministers (Brussels, 26 March 2012) on cutting costs in the forthcoming Multi-Annual Financial Framework. A transcript of the Seat elements of the 24 March 2012 interview is below.
3. FRANCE CUTS BACK ON STRASBOURG COSTS
Financial support for maintaining the status of Strasbourg as "European capital" will be cut back from €120 m to € 80 m for the 2012 - 2014 period, i.e. a financial reduction by the French state of 32% over the next two years for various projects in Strasbourg, Les Echos reported on 28 February.
Edward McMillan-Scott & Alexander Alvaro, co-chairmen Single Seat
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Transcript of President Martin Schulz's radio interview on a Single Seat on Swedish public radio, 24 March 2012
Prepared by Single Seat
So Mr President, one thing that probably undermines the public confidence in Parliament is your commuting way of handling your business, you're going from Brussels to Strasbourg and from Strasbourg to Brussels and so on. What are you doing to change that?
President Martin Schulz: To ask a very good question, do you now who decides about the seats of the Institutions?
I guess you're going to tell me that it is the European Council and the governments.
MS: Exactly. The Member States. Yes. These are the Member States. The European Union is not a federal state and I think in Sweden there is an overwhelming majority of people who are delighted that it is not a federal state. The European Union is a federation of sovereign states and on the basis of the treaty the states decide about the seats of the institution. If the European Parliament would decide I think it would either be Brussels or Strasbourg, but for sure one single seat.
So what do you think?
MS: I think we need one single seat. This is not efficient, always to travel between two places and I was in my previous function some years ago as Group Leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament the only one so far as I remember since I'm a Member of the European Parliament who took the initiative to ask the heads of state and government concretely to change the treaty and to decide definitively Brussels of Strasbourg. And then I convinced the Austrian President in this time Chancellor Schüssel to ask all the governments around, and the answer of all the governments to change the treaty and to come to an end this travelling between Strasbourg and Brussels was no. An err-
So what do you do now, in the future?
MS: I'm obliged to respect the European treaty, and the president of the European Parliament is entitled to, obliged to respect the treaty. But I'll tell you now the story. There was a very famous Swedish Member of the European Parliament, Cecelia Malmström, who collected 1 million signatures. And then she became a member, European Minister of the government of Mr Reinfeldt, and then Reinfeldt became President of the European Council. I asked him, "Prime Minister you have now Cecelia with 1 million signatures. Will you now take an initiative to change the treaty?"
And his answer was...?
MS: No
And his explanation?
MS: Ask himself. The explanation is easy. He would answer to you because we need a unanimous vote of all the 27 governments, and France and Luxembourg will never agree
Do you think there will be a Citizens' Initiative on this issue?
MS: Yes, but the Citizens' Initiative for sure, I'm sure that we will get such an Initiative, but even a Citizens' Initiative cannot change the treaty. You need for a treaty change a unanimous vote and the last treaty failed by a 'no' in France and in the Netherlands, and therefore you can be sure I do my upmost to come to one single seat- by the way I am in favour of Strasbourg, but err-
Why?
MS: Because I think the Seat of the European Parliament is Strasbourg. France is the second Member State of the European Union that has only one institution, that's the European Parliament. We cannot expect from the French that they are the second contributor to the European Union they have no institution. The French said always let's get the European Central Bank from Frankfurt to Strasbourg as is a solution but then the Germans say no. So you see how difficult this is on a European level.
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