MUSICAL CHAIRS CAUSES DISCORD IN STRASBOURG

Rory Watson

(The European, 25 Nov.- 1 Dec. 1994)

This time even the European Parliament's longsuffering staff have had enough as their political masters begin yet another round of musical chairs over their main place of work: Strasbourg or Brussels.

Some of their offices in Strasbourg have been requisitioned for the new MEPs and their staff, and the lowly officials told to move to a Portakabin in a car park.

The fun and games have started as the Parliament prepares to welcome scores of first-time MEPs from Austria and Scandinavia.

Socialist and Liberal members argue that because Strasbourg cannot provide proper facilities, the sessions should be moved to larger premises in Brussels.

Parliament's business leaders have proposed a sticking plaster solution to enable collapsible seats and voting facilities to be set up at the back of the existing debating chamber; to cater for the 74 new MEPs who will arrive if Norway also votes for EU membership. The total cost of the exercise is estimated at three million ecus ($2.4m).

But any move to downplay Strasbourg's role will be seen as a challenge to EU governments, who last year made the French city the Parliament's official seat.

An attempt by British, Dutch and Belgian MEPs to persuade the Socialist Group to back moves calling for all plenary sessions to be held in Brussels "until such time as a Strasbourg hemicycle [debating chamber] can properly provide the necessary facilities for all members", failed by just two votes earlier this month.

In the fierce wrangling that accompanied the discussions, French members threatened to leave the Socialist Group if it backed the move. Others suggested that France would also delay planned increases to the EU budget and might block future demands to increase the parliament's powers.

The Parliament's president, Klaus Hänsch, is prepared to continue the current practice of working in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg. "I do not wish my term of office to be dominated by a struggle over the Parliament's seat, since this is a struggle in which there can be only one loser Parliament itself," he said.

But leading Dutch Socialist MEP and former parliamentary president, Piet Dankert, disagrees. "We should develop a strategy. There is a lot of criticism of the cost of the Parliament's various buildings, but it is governments who have imposed these costs on us by saying we should meet in three places and should have 12 sessions a year in Strasbourg," he said.

Gijs de Vries, the leader of the 43-strong Liberal Group insisted: "I find it absurd that governments should build themselves a huge new Council of Ministers building in Brussels and yet refuse us the right to go to Brussels. The Parliament must be where the power is and that is Brussels."