Parliament to hold more plenary sessions in Brussels

The European Parliament is to start holding extra plenary sessions in Brussels as a way of responding directly to major policy initiatives from the European Commission.

The plan is for commissioners to address MEPs on the same day that their proposals are approved by the College of commissioners.

Commissioners who are announcing major policy initiatives will leave the college’s meeting once the important decisions have been taken, usually around 11 o’clock, and go to the Parliament to present them to MEPs.

At present the Parliament has 12 four-day plenary sessions in Strasbourg each year and six two-day mini-plenary sessions in Brussels.

Monica Frassoni, joint president of the Greens/European Free Alliance, said: "The idea of the mini-mini-plenary is to have an occasion to have a discussion with the Commission on important issues."

The decision to hold extra meetings is to be approved by leaders of the political groups today (24 May) and is the first result of the working group on reform of the Parliament.

MEPs opposed to the Parliament making the monthly commute to Strasbourg hope that having additional sessions in Brussels will increase pressure to have only one seat.

But Frassoni said that the decision would "not have any impact on plenaries in Strasbourg" for the time being as the issue of a single seat had not yet been put on the agenda of the working group.

She also said that the extra sessions would only be added "when needed" rather than being on a regular basis.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the other Greens/EFA joint leader, said that it was time "to put an alternative" to basing the Parliament in Strasbourg "on the table" because there were politicians around the newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy who would be open to discussion.

The European Parliament is to start holding extra plenary sessions in Brussels as a way of responding directly to major policy initiatives from the European Commission.