French dismayed by opinion on Strasbourg’s pre-eminence

Date: 06/02/1997

By Rory Watson

DEFENDERS of Strasbourg's right to host 12 European Parliament plenary sessions every year have suffered a set-back in their campaign to prevent any drift by MEPs away from the Alsatian capital.

After MEPs chose to gather in Strasbourg just 11 times in both 1996 and this year, the French government challenged the decision in the European Court of Justice.

It argued that the Parliament had illegally ignored an agreement between EU leaders in December 1992 stipulating that the city should be the official seat of the institution and should host a dozen sessions annually.

But France's argument has been rejected by one of the ECJ's most senior advisers, Advocate-General Carl Otto Lenz. In his formal opinion on the case this week, he stated that while the EU leaders could determine the seat of the Parliament, they could not set binding conditions on the number, timetable or goal of its sessions.

His opinion will be ammunition for those MEPs who criticise the parliamentary practice of meeting in three separate venues and argue that the institution should be able to determine its own internal working conditions.

The advocate-general's opinion is usually, although not always, followed by the full Court. But supporters and opponents of Strasbourg's pre-eminent role in the Parliament's activities struck a cautious note this week.

Dutch Socialist MEP Piet Dankert, a former Parliament president and chairman of the One Seat working group of MEPs, said: “We have not yet had a judgement, but this indicates that the Parliament is right when it eliminates a plenary session in Strasbourg it does not consider to be useful.”

But French Christian Democrat member Georges de Brémond d'Ars commented:

“I think that, since the Maastricht Treaty, decisions of the European Council have taken on a new importance and I believe that the decision to have 12 sessions is a binding one. That is my opinion, but it is up to the judges to decide.”

Under the agreement struck at the 1992 Edinburgh summit, EU leaders declared that the European Parliament “shall have its seat in Strasbourg where the 12 periods of monthly plenary sessions, including the budget session, shall be held”.

But many MEPs resent the way the decision was taken and point to the hefty costs involved in commuting regularly between Brussels and Strasbourg.