MEPs dismayed over ECJ ruling on Strasbourg

Date: 02/10/1997

By Rory Watson

MEPs have reacted with dismay to a European Court of Justice ruling this week which has dealt a body blow to the Parliament's ability to organise its own business.

A lengthy legal battle against the French government ended in defeat for the Parliament when the European Court of Justice ruled that MEPs had acted illegally in ignoring the wishes of EU leaders by deciding to hold only 11, instead of 12, plenary sessions in Strasbourg in 1996.

The judges' ruling was welcomed in Paris, but critics point out that it has undermined the Parliament's autonomy at the very time when its legislative powers are being extended under the Treaty of Amsterdam.

But although many members reacted angrily to the Court's view that they did not have total control over their own internal activities, they insisted that the rule of law should be respected.

Dutch Socialist MEP Piet Dankert, a former president of the European Parliament and chairman of the 'One Seat' parliamentary working group, said: “We have got to respect the Court, but it is a political problem which has to be dealt with in a political way. However, everywhere else in Europe, parliaments decide for themselves when and where they should meet.”

A similar note was struck by German Socialist member Klaus Hänsch, who was the Parliament's president when MEPs took the initiative which sparked the court challenge. “I deplore the decision, but the judgement of the Court must be respected,” he said.

The Court accepted that at their December 1992 summit in Edinburgh, EU leaders had “definitively decided to locate the seat of the Parliament in Strasbourg”. As a result, “given the plurality of working places of the Parliament, the member states could specify the activities which must take place there”, said the judges.

The Court's judgement directly contradicted the advice of one of its advocates-general, Carl Otto Lenz, in February. He agreed that EU leaders could determine where the Parliament's official home should be, but argued that they could not lay down binding conditions on the number, timetable or goal of its sessions.

Strasbourg's status will be strengthened even further once the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified. At French insistence, it contains a legally-binding protocol stipulating that Strasbourg must host “12 periods of monthly plenary sessions, including the budget session” each year.

The Court ruling is likely to have a number of knock-on effects.

It could trigger off a guerrilla war by those MEPs who object to government leaders determining where and when they should meet and believe that, on grounds of budgetary and political efficiency, more of the Parliament's work should be conducted in Brussels.

The Parliament's political leaders will now have to decide whether to reverse last month's decision to hold just 11 plenary sessions in Strasbourg again next year. A question mark also hangs over whether the French government will proceed with a second case challenging last year's decision by MEPs to maintain the number of Strasbourg sessions at 11 this year as well.

The Court ruled that the only time the 12-sessions-a-year rule for Strasbourg could be broken was in a Euro-election year.

A spokesman for Parliament President José Mar'a Gil-Robles said last night (1 October) that he had instructed the institution's lawyers to study the implications of the ruling.