By stubbornly defending the absurd Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament, the French government is showing his teeth when it is least needed: it is only smell of a past "grandeur", slowly fading away. 

Let’s state it clearly: there is no valid reason why the European Parliament should have a double seat. There is also no valid reason that justifies that one of these seats is Strasbourg, 492 kilometers from Brussels, where all the other political institutions are reasonably positioned. It is just politics at its worst: the problem is that the Parliament seats have been established by the founding Treaties, which need unanimity to be amended.  

It should be a no-brainer, but France insists on exercising a frustrating “colbertisme”, the protectionist policy that has made the minister so famous in history, by refusing to give up a formidable source of revenues and international prestige. 

Strasbourg is a spending black hole: people and documents are shipped with special trains and cars, making the EU look like hypocrit in times of climate change and CO2 emissions control. There are few flights in general, and namely no direct trains or flights from Brussels, other than the charter ones for MEPs and their assistants and for the officials, an army of roughly 5000 people who all try to get there somehow. Hotel prices skyrocket in the plenaries weeks: some recent calculation estimates in 400 to 500% the price rise, compared to the rest of the month. You can pay up to 200 Euros in a three star hotel, when the normal price would be 80. Allowances to MEPs and their assistants sometimes can’t even cover the expenses, as the whole city of Strasbourg smartly tries to squeeze the EU cow to the limits. Parliament building’s maintenance is also insanely expensive, and simply inefficient, as the venue is empty for 26 days a month. 

With plenty of offices and two plenary rooms in Brussels, all necessary facilities are in the capital of Europe, where MEPs live for three quarters of the month. Cooperation and dialogue with the Commission and the Council are - literally - three blocks away. Weather is...Ok, it’s ghastly but so it is in Strasbourg. 

Some MEPs, like Robert Goebbels (from Luxembourg), think that if one seat should be the solution, this one seat should be in Strasbourg. The French government opposes a juridical argument (“if one seat is chosen, it should be Strasbourg”) and a political argument, which is that Strasbourg is a symbol. 

But a symbol of what? Of a French-German pacification that happened 67 years ago? 

France is blatantly ignoring common sense: it is Europe looking at its past and not at its future, a distorted view that is transformed in practice in the amount of money that our generation will have to pay to satisfy the French grandeur. And with no positive externalities.

France alternatively uses politics and law, according to the interlocutor, to dismiss the claims: officially, it stresses the importance of following the prescription of the Treaties, as if France itself was not the only Member State refusing to amend them. Behind the scenes, it strenuously defends Strasbourg’s “Parliamentary” subsidized economy. 

Some other MEPs have established a study center to try to promote the “Brussels only” solution: but this seems like an initiative to earn a spot in the limelight, as politicians are very clever to immediately seize opportunities for populist campaigns. Ambitious young German liberal Alexander Alvaro has made the one seat campaign his most important political initiative. 

But regardless of the personal reasons of single MEPs, the fight to have the Parliament only sitting in Brussels - where it makes more political and economical sense - should be joined by all Europeans. It should come from people’s initiative and it should be an overall concern. 

Just imagine what you could do with the money you save...