Brussels, 25/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - The double seat of the European Parliament and its cortege of monthly shuttle transport between Brussels and Strasbourg not only gives rise to stratospherically high costs in terms of transport costs and wasting resources, but is a plague to the environment, particularly the climate. This has been revealed by an independent study, commissioned by the group of Greens/EFA at the Parliament, and of which the results were presented to the press, on 24 April in Strasbourg, on the eve of the Parliament's vote on establishing a temporary committee on the climate. This provided the Greens/EFA with an opportunity to reiterate the measures they recommend to remedy this waste.
This study, which was commissioned by Caroline Lucas (Green, UK), and Jean Lambert (Green, UK), and which is entitled “European Parliament: A Study of the Environmental Costs of the European Parliament Two-Seat Operation”, was carried out by Professor John Whitelegg, the head of sustainable transport at the Stockolm Environment Institute of York University. It uses evidence to back up its claims that the geographical distribution of the seat of the EP leads to an excess quantity of around 20,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year, by adding up all the trips between Brussels and Strasbourg carried out by MEPs, their guests, their staff and journalists, the transport of goods between the two sites, and the consumption of energy needed to maintain two premises. The study also points out that by doing nothing more than no longer holding its sessions in Strasbourg, the EP would be able to save 3928 tonnes of CO2 in gas and electricity alone, plus the costs of monthly travel for 2000 civil servants and interpreters, around a thousand assistants, journalists and lobbyists, 785 MEPs, and around 15 lorries containing the documents needed for the sessions to unfold correctly. On the basis of this study, the Greens/EFA group recommends a raft of concrete measures, which the Parliament could take to reduce the impact of its functioning on the environment, such as replacing its fleet of pool cars with less polluting vehicles, greater use of video-conferences, and using green energy operators.
In a press release, Caroline Lucas states: “We already knew that a two-seat Parliament cost the European taxpayer more than €200 million every year. Now, we have concrete proof of the damage caused to the climate by this travelling circus. At least an extra 20,000 tonnes of CO2 is sent into the atmosphere every year, which is the equivalent of the emissions generated by 13,000 return flights between London and New York”. On keeping the two-seat system: “This anachronistic arrangement serves no purpose and undermines the credibility of the EU, which styles itself the leader in the fight against climate change, just as it undermines its objective of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% between now and 2020”.
“If Strasbourg is a historical city symbolising post-war reconciliation, the Parliament seat in Strasbourg today symbolises all that is wrong with the EU”, states Jean-Lambert, asking: “How long will the heads of state and government of the EU continue to stick their heads in the sand and refuse to put an end to this ridiculous merry-go-round, which the majority of citizens and MEPs disapprove of?”.
The study, which comes under the heading of the report “For a More Energetically Efficient European Parliament”, was part of the proposals presented by Monica Frassoni, co-president of the Greens/EFA, during her campaign for the presidency of the EP. Pointing out that it is the job of the MEPs to draft legislation aiming to set ceilings on CO2 emissions for vehicles and debate European objectives for renewable energy, Ms Frassoni and Claude Turmes, spokesperson of the Greens/EFA group for energy, stressed that “it is also our job to reduce the negative impact on the climate. Before casting stones at others, we should first set our own house in order”.
The study can be consulted at:
http: //http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics/dokbin/180/180441.eu_and_climate_changen.pdf
The proposals of the Greens/EFA are accessible online:
http//: http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics/dokbin/180/180437.eu_and_the environment@en.pdf (an)