The Strasbourg seat is not an EU problem
The European Parliament's monthly 'travelling circus' between Belgium and France is not by design. It's an accidental byproduct of petty nationalism. More Europe would stop things like this.
When I talk to people outside the bubble about their negative impressions of the European Union, one theme comes up consistently: the European Parliament’s back-and-forth each month between Brussels and Strasbourg, which comes with an estimated cost of €114 million per year. People either regard it as an obscene example of what they assume is typically wasteful EU spending of taxpayers’ money or, very occasionally, as a great idea by the EU to bring the institutions to different locations to bring it closer to the people. But they’re both wrong. The ‘travelling circus’, as it’s known in the EU bubble, was not purposefully designed by anyone. And federal EU is not responsible for this bizarre practice.
As we approach the June European Parliament election and this issue once again raises its head as an example of EU waste, its worth laying out the facts of why the Parliament spends three days a month in a charming little Alsatian town. The first thing to know is that nobody wants to do this. Strasbourg is a lovely place, and at my old job I volunteered to be the one to go once a month because it was nice to get a little beauty break away from dreary Brussels. But anyone with two eyes can see that this ten-hour roundtrip journey by MEPs, their staff and their documents once a month is an obscene waste of time and money. The Parliament itself has voted multiple times to end this practice. But the parliament doesn’t get to decide where it meets, that’s up to the national governments. And MEPs are court-ordered to go to Strasbourg once a month because of legal actions by France. But here’s the thing: France doesn’t want them to be going back and forth either. So what’s going on?