Fontaine bid to bring back Friday sittings

Date: 10/05/01

By John Shelley

European Parliament President Nicole Fontaine will next week attempt to re-introduce Friday sittings - controversially scrapped last year - when the assembly meets in Strasbourg.

Fontaine has tabled a proposed calendar for 2002 which includes Friday voting during the week of each month that MEPs hold their full 'plenary' meeting in the French town.

The Friday sessions were axed last year, against the will of Fontaine and party group leaders, after they were voted down by MEPs. The president insists that was the wrong decision and that the sitting should be re-introduced.

"It is very hard to work correctly without the Friday," said her spokesman Jacques Nancy. "Our legislative agenda is becoming more and more important each year and Mrs Fontaine thinks that we need the five days to get through all the work."

But the MEPs who led the campaign to abolish Friday sittings say they have saved taxpayers around €1 million a year.

They say Fontaine refuses refusing to accept defeat.

"I think its bizarre that she doesn't use what we democratically decided last year as a starting point," said Dutch Liberal Lousewies van der Laan.

Friday sessions were abandoned after a group of MEPs exposed that less than a third of members - the number which is supposed to be necessary for a vote to be taken - regularly attended.

They insist that nothing has changed since last year and that if even if Friday sittings come back it does not mean the MEPs will.

The row is entwined with the wider debate over whether the Parliament should continue to meet in Strasbourg at all.

Some members want all meetings held in Brussels while others, especially French MEPs such as Fontaine, are determined that the seat of European democracy should remain in France. MEPs will vote on the Fontaine's proposed calendar in Strasbourg next week.

European Parliament President Nicole Fontaine will attempt to re-introduce Friday sittings - controversially scrapped in 2000 - when the assembly next meets in Strasbourg.