Brussels, 02/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - While the European Parliament in Brussels opened its doors again on 2 April, following construction work, supporters of a single seat for the European Parliament published its manifesto “Towards a More Responsible and Accountable European Parliament”, which underlines the commitment of its signatories to work towards creating a single seat.
The manifesto asserts that, “if elected Member of the European Parliament in May 2014, I pledge to work for greater efficiency by demanding an end to the European Parliament's three working places arrangement, and giving it a logical Single Seat - in Brussels”. Single seat supporters estimate that the “additional seats” in Strasbourg and Luxembourg, cost €180 million and 19,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. The European Association of Young entrepreneurs puts these costs at €51.5 million and 3,250 tonnes of CO2 a year (see EUROPE 11027).
Supporters of the single seat also set up a “Brussels Single Seat” platform to build a strategy to ensure that the seat of the European Parliament is permanently based in Brussels. The platform will hold its first meeting on 8 April. On 20 November 2013, 483 MEPs (141 against) voted for a resolution stating that the EP would “be more efficient, cost-effective and more environmentally friendly if it had a seat in a single location”. A lot of people interpret this single location as Brussels.
MEPs also decided to sound out the population in six EU countries (France, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Germany) on this issue. Gerald Häfner (Germany, Greens/EFA) said that they would inform them regarding the current situation and ask them if they supported the principle of a single seat or preferred to maintain several different ones. He added that the polls would also look at who should make the decision regarding the seat. Edward McMillan-Scott (ALDE, United Kingdom) also announced that more than 1.3 million Europeans had signed an online petition calling for a single seat in Brussels, “the political capital of the EU”. (CG)