Brussels, 28/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The MEPs who want the European Parliament to have a single seat intend to focus their 2015 campaign on the adoption of a report calling for changes to the treaty (article 48), the president of the 'Single Seat' campaign, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt (EPP, Sweden), announced in Brussels on Wednesday 28 January. She voiced her hopes that the EP would start talks with the member states regarding the single seat (Brussels). The unanimous decision of all EU countries is required to change the treaty.
To kick off the 2015 campaign, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt called on the MEPs to sign a support placard in favour of the single seat and invited a member of the Court of Auditors to present the principal results of the report of the Court of Auditors from July 2014 on the savings that would be made if the Strasbourg seat were transferred to Brussels (€114 million a year).
In late October of last year, the MEPs called for the “immediate” setting in place of a roadmap for a single seat for the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11183).
Anna Maria Corazza Bildt spoke of a new report calling for treaty change, which is to be adopted in the near future. “The citizens of the EU want to see us working more efficiently”, she said. She has called, so far in vain, for an EP Eurobarometer survey to sound out the citizens of the EU on the idea of a single seat.
Anna Maria Corazza Bildt was accompanied by other MEPs including Italy's Pina Picierno (S&D), Ulrike Lunacek (Greens/EFA, Austria), Ashley Fox (ECR, UK) and the inspiration behind the single seat idea, the former MEP Edward McMillan-Scott. (LC)