Brussels, 06/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - In an opinion published on Thursday 6 September 2012 in cases C-237/11 and C-238/11, Advocate-General Paolo Mengozzi suggests that the European Court of Justice cancel the European Parliament's changes to the timetable of parliamentary sittings for 2012 and 2013. He says the plenaries in October 2012 and 2013 have been artificially divided into two and cannot be classified individually as monthly plenary sessions.
Under the EU treaties, the EP must hold twelve plenary sessions a year. Traditionally, there are two in October to compensate for the summer break (there are no sittings in August) and the ordinary four-day plenary sessions are usually held in Strasbourg, with the additional sittings being held in Brussels on successive mornings. In two decisions adopted on 9 March 2011, the European Parliament changed the calendar of sittings for 2012 and 2013, scrapping one of the four-day October 2012 and October 2013 sittings and dividing the remaining four-day sittings in the two Octobers into two two-day sittings; in other words, two separate two-day plenary sessions, in the week of 22-25 October 2012 and in the week of 21-24 October 2013, all of them in Strasbourg. France, backed by Luxembourg, complained to the Court of Justice, asking it to scrap the two EP decisions. France criticises the EP for breaking up the regularity of plenary sessions by introducing additional meetings in Brussels and reducing the number of plenaries in Strasbourg from twelve to eleven. It says the EP has broken the treaty rules and a precedent set by Court of Justice ruling in Case C-345/95 on a similar case in the past. France is concerned that reducing the sittings in October 2012 and October 2013 to two days would make them less important and would make a substantial difference to the presence of MEPs in Strasbourg (the EP did not give this as one of its aims).
The Advocate-General believes France has a good argument. He says the Court of Justice cannot ignore the backdrop of huge pressure to scrap the EP's obligation to meet in Strasbourg. He says that Strasbourg was decided as the place where twelve, regular plenary sessions would take place at regular intervals, including the budget sitting. Additional plenaries must not be arranged in another place of work unless the twelve regular meetings take place in Strasbourg. Secondly, on the duration of the plenaries and in the absence of any clear rules in the treaties, Mengozzi says the overall coherence of the timetable must be respected. The holding of two monthly plenary sessions in October is an anomaly because the lack of any meeting in August interrupts the regularity of meetings, but this is made worse by the European Parliament's changes. Thirdly, the EP has not explained or justified why it wants to reduce the October 2012 and October 2013 plenaries to two days. All in all, the Advocate-General believes that the halving of the four-day October plenaries is artificial and only artificially meets the requirements set out in the treaties.
The French socialist MEPs issued a press release expressing delight at the opinion that the EP must respect EU law and keep twelve plenary sessions in Strasbourg. The opposite view is taken by the Conservatives and Reformers, which accuse the travelling circus of MEPs shuttling between Brussels and Strasbourg of wasting money and polluting the environment. The environmental question has been taken up by the Greens in a press release. The European Parliament itself has refused to comment until the actual Court of Justice ruling is delivered. (FG/transl.fl)