Faced with a ‘weakening’ of Strasbourg’s seat in the European Parliament due to the health crisis, the City of Strasbourg wants to deploy a strategy that its mayor, Jeanne Barseghian, defined as “offensive and positive” on Monday 5 October.
The Green representative presented the main lines in front of the Agora of the city’s pro-European associations. The aim is to make Strasbourg the “European Green Capital”, but also a reference in terms of human rights and hospitality by developing the notion of “city of refuge” for climate refugees and artists and intellectuals persecuted in their countries.
Ms Barseghian also wants to transform the city into a “laboratory of a Europe without borders” by deepening its relations with the neighbouring town of Kehl, on the other side of the Rhine.
At the institutional level, the Strasbourg Agora has sent a letter to the Commission and the European Parliament asking the city to host the secretariat of the “Conference on the Future of Europe”, as well as the opening and closing sessions of this event, whose work should last 2 years.
In the short term, the objective remains the earliest possible return of the European Parliament sessions to Strasbourg. As the overall health situation there has improved, it could be as early as the end of October, Ms Barseghian said. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)