Maria José

The monthly migration between the two seats of the European Parliament (Brussels in Belgium, and Strasbourg in France) is a prime target for criticism and even ridicule of the European Union.

What is lesser known is that the European Parliament can not change its own seat because the location of the seat is defined in the European Treaties, and those can only be changed by an agreement between all the member states.

Recently, the European Parliament, in its estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2013 went as far to explicitly state that it would like to see its seat changed to a single location:

Parliament’s places of work should be limited to a single seat for Members and officials
…
substantial savings could be made by having a single seat for Parliament
…
calls on the Council to take into account the demands expressed already on several occasions by Parliament and Union citizens concerning the need to fix a single seat for the Members and officials 

The resolution on the Seat was adopted by 429 votes for, 184 against and 37 abstentions. Good news for those in favor of a single seat, and a clear message that the European Parliament would very much like to see a single seat.

So what needs to happen for that to become reality? Well, as you can read in the quote above, the EP calls on the Council to act on the need for a single seat.

The Council is just another way of saying the member states. And to know how the member states feel about things, let’s look at the votes per country:

Votes per country (for-against-abstention)

• BE: 15-3-0
• BG: 13-3-1
• CZ: 18-1-0
• DK: 12-0-0
• DE: 46-34-8
• EE: 5-1-0
• IE: 9-1-1
• EL: 5-8-7
• ES: 17-18-4
• FR: 13-43-2
• IT: 58-6-2
• CY: 1-1-3
• LV: 4-3-1
• LT: 5-2-1
• LU: 0-5-1
• HU: 12-5-1
• MT: 5-0-0
• NL: 23-0-0
• AT: 9-7-1
• PL: 35-12-2
• PT: 13-8-0
• RO: 11-13-3
• SL: 6-1-0
• SK: 7-4-0
• FI: 10-1-0
• SE: 18-0-0
• UK: 61-1-0  

(countries in bold oppose the idea of a single seat)

The votes show that although the European Parliament simply calls for one single seat, without naming where that seat should be, it is France who leads the resistance to the idea. Obviously, they don’t want to European Parliament to leave Strasbourg.

Luxembourg, where the parliament also has a lot of staff, although no political staff) is also not keen on the EP limiting its places of work.

Greece, Estland and Romania aren’t nearly as decided as France and Luxembourg, but nevertheless, the balance tips to negative in these member states. 

The reason for that is most likely pan-European party politics, as becomes rather obvious from the breakdown of votes by political group:

Votes per political group (for-against-abstention)

• European People’s Party: 86-141-10
• Socialists & Democrats: 107-24-17
• Alliance of Liberals and Democrats: 68-5-0
• The Greens: 47-0-2
• Conservatives & Reformists: 41-1-0
• United Left: 15-3-9
• Europe of Freedom and Democracy: 29-2-0

With a whopping 141 votes against, the EPP group is responsible for over three quarters of all votes against the single seat. It’s also the only group who is not in favor of a single seat.

The S&D group, although effortlessly eclipsed by the EPP group also racks up 24 votes against, most like from French members ;)

In all the other groups, pretty much everybody agrees that a single seat is a better idea. The Greens don’t even have a single member that opposes the idea.

The EPP group is the largest political group in Europe, and among its ranks are a number of heads of state and prime ministers from member states of the European Union.

So it seems that the European Parliament will keep its two seats for the time being. Despite there being a majority of members who want a single seat, the largest powerhouse of European Politics is firmly against it.