‘The Seat Question’
- Fact sheet on the European Parliament -

• Legal basis: Article 77 of the ECSC Treaty and arts. 216 EEC and 189 Euratom provided that the seat of the European institutions should be determined unanimously (‘by common accord’) of the governments of the Member States.
• From 1952 onwards, the ECSC assembly, called the European Assembly after the foundation of EEC and Euratom, met in Strasbourg, as this was the seat of Council of Europe to which most of the initial members belonged. The General Secretariat was installed at the site of the Council of Ministers and the European Commission, which was then Luxembourg. Brussels did not seem very interested in acquiring the title European capital. However, more and more meetings took place in Brussels.
• In  1958 it was decided that the Council of Ministers and Commission would seat in the country holding the rotating presidency of the EC. Accidentally, of the founding members, Belgium came first in line and this coincidental fact made it the provisional capital of the Community for more than 40 years.
• The 1965 Merger Treaty held an accompanying ‘provisional decision on the location of certain institutions’ (8 April 1965) by the six Member States. Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Brussels were named the provisional places of work of the Community. The General Secretariat of the Parliament and its departments should remain in Luxembourg.
• In  the late 1960s, the Parliament began to meet in Luxembourg, though it continued to meet in Strasbourg as well. In sum, in the period 1968-1979 58 plenaries were held in Luxembourg, and 77 in Strasbourg. 
• After the enlargement of the EC in the seventies, the hemicycle soon proved not large enough. The MEPs got used to Strasbourg, having the attractive advantage of office space for all MEPs. Parliamentary committee meetings became more frequent and new premises were set up in Brussels to accommodate these. This caused a strike amongst Luxembourg staff of the institutions, evoking numerous calls for a single institutional seat. However, in March 1981, the European Council reiterates status quo

• In the so-called Zagari-resolution (7 July  1981) the European Parliament requested the Member States to decide on the seat of the institutions. Since the Member States failed to act, the Parliament stated that the plenary sessions would be held in Strasbourg and the committee meetings in Brussels.
• In the resulting court case (C-230/81 Luxembourg v Parliament (February 1983)), the European Court of Justice ruled that Luxembourg could not, as it had requested, prevent the European Parliament giving up the practice of meeting in Luxembourg which it had only introduced on its own initiative and was not an integral part of the status quo. Strasbourg becomes the regular meeting place.
• In July 1983, a written declaration by half of the number of MEPs to divide the secretariat between the effective places of work with service concerned with the functioning of part-sessions in Strasbourg and the committees in Brussels. However, in a court case (C-108-83) the Court of Justice annulled the EP resolution as violation of the status quo.
• In October 1985, a Parliament resolution called for the construction of a new Brussels European Parliament building. France immediately called for the resolution to be declared null and void (C-258-85, France v Parliament). The Court of Justice rejected the French request, thus acknowledging that European Parliament would be within its rights to hold some of its meetings outside Strasbourg.
• In January 1989 a resolution was adopted by 222 to 176 votes, calling for a reduction in the dispersal of European Parliament work and staff, a single seat and committee and information work to be based in Brussels. The report by UK MEP Prag, was strongly supported by the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and the UK as well as the German socialists. It was strongly contested by French and Luxembourg MEPs.
  

• November 1991, two court cases were ruled (C-213/88 and C-39/89 Luxembourg v Parliament (O.J. 224/2, 30 August 1988)), based on art 173 EEC and art 31, 38 ECSC. The Court of Justice dismissed the challenge of the Luxembourg government to this resolution since the European Parliament objectives as regards to its internal organisation justifies its building projects in Brussels. Moreover, the transfer of a number of European Parliament officials to Brussels was, according to the Court,  not on such a scale as to be in breach of prior government decisions on the seat.
• In March 1990, a controversy arose over the proposed renting of the new buildings in Brussels. A compromise of the Bureau was put forward, proposing plenary sessions to be held permanently in Strasbourg and negotiations over the construction of a new hemicycle there. The proposal was supported by France, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy and Greece and finally adopted in April.
• In the course of  1991 supplementary sittings took place in Brussels over the developments in the Gulf war and the Baltic States. However, representatives of the current President of the Council, Luxembourg. were absent in these meetings. As the workload of the Parliament increased, partly resulting from the introduction of thee co-decision procedure, the precedent of holding debates in Brussels was pursued. The meetings were officially called ‘enlarged Bureau' sittings’, ‘meetings of the conference of presidents open to all MEPs’, or ‘mini-plenaries’, open to all MEPs, but excluding the right to vote.
• In January 1992, the lease for the Brussels buildings was signed and additional sittings were planned in Brussels. France pressured the Member States.
• In December 1992 the Edinburgh Council (O.J.1992, C 341/1) definitively decided that the European Parliament shall have its seat in Strasbourg where the twelve periods of monthly sessions, including the budget session, shall be held. The periods of additional plenary sessions shall be held in Brussels. The Committees of the European Parliament shall meet in Brussels. The General Secretariat of the European Parliament and its departments shall remain in Luxembourg
• The EP, however, stated to be surprised by this decision, taken by the Member States without consultation of the Parliament. It contested the legality of this decision stating that the decision to divide the workload of the EP over three different Member States is contrary to the Treaties (arts 5, 142, 216 EEG and the inherent right of the EP to decide upon its own organisation.
• During the negotiations on the Amsterdam Treaty the issue of the seat was raised at the final stage of the IGC by the French government. A Protocol was attached to the Treaty. The position of the General Secretariat in Luxembourg is reinforced.
• Frictions developed between the French government and the Parliament as the first sought guarantees that the Parliament would respect the conditions of the 1992 Edinburgh decision. In 1993, the French Assembly delayed the procedures for ratification of the increase in the number of MEPs agreed upon in 1992, until the President would have signed the lease for the new Strasbourg building. Finally, President Klepsch signs in 1994.
• The European Parliament held only 11 Strasbourg meetings in 1992, 1993 and 1996 and ten meetings in 1994.
• As a result, a controversy arose over the need for having 12 sessions in Strasbourg which given the August recess means two sessions in one other month, traditionally the October budget session.
• In October 1997, the French government started proceedings to annul the 20 September 1995 decision of the European Parliament (C-345/95) invoking the competence of the Member States laid down in art 216 to determine the seats of the institutions. According to France, the fixing of a specific number of yearly plenary sessions was inherent in the power of the Member States to fix the seat of the European Parliament. The European Parliament for its part argued that the Member States had to respect Parliaments’ power to determine its own internal organisation as embodied in art 142 EC and that the Edinburgh decision was invalid in fixing a precise number of plenary sessions. The Advocate General argued for a flexible interpretation of the Edinburgh Decision in conformity with the existing practice, according to which both additional periods of plenary sessions and committee meetings are held in Brussels. He questioned to which extent the use of the notion ‘monthly’ expressed an explicit will of the Member States to oblige the European Parliament to meet each year in August and in June during election years. However, in its verdict the Court deviated from this Opinion: Given the plurality of the working places, the exercise of that competence involved not only the obligation to determine the location of the seat of the European Parliament, but also the implied power to give precision to that term, by indicating the activities which must take place there. As a consequence the vote of the European Parliament of 20 September 1995 was annulled.
• Another case, related to the number of part-sessions of the European Parliament in the year 1997 was pending before the Court but was removed from the register in view of this decision.
• In October 1999 the issue is raised again in adopting the calendar for 2000.
• April 12, 2000 the EP adopted a resolution over the proposals for the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference. It is proposed that a new Treaty article will rule that the EP decides with absolute majority on its seat.

2. National Parliaments

The Dutch Second Camber adopted a resolution on 30 Sept 1999 (TK 99-2000 26550 nr 7, members Verhagen Timmersmans Hessing Scheltema Karimi Van Middelkoop Marijnissen en Van den Berg): ‘(....) constaterende dat de verhuizing van het voltallige parlement twaalf maal per jaar een verspilling van gemeenschapsgeld is - verzoekt de regering te bevorderen om bij de komende IGC een verdragswijziging te realiseren waarbij Brussel als enige vergaderplaats voor het het European Parliament wordt aangewezen’. find that moving the full Parliament 12 times per year is really a waste of Community money

° ask the government to highten on the agenda of the coming IGC and (even - my emphasis) realise a change in the Treaty whereby Brussels is named the only place of assembly of the European Parliament.

3. Facts and figures: 

• The European Parliament is the only assembly in the world not having a sole seat. The European Parliament now spreads over nine main buildings in three cities in three founder member states of the former European Community: Luxembourg, France and Belgium.
• All 732 MEPs have offices in Strasbourg and Brussels. Secretariat staff has offices in Luxembourg or Brussels and shares a smaller number of offices in Strasbourg.
• At the moment, Luxembourg holds 20% of the total surface area of European Parliament buildings and 2000 offices. Brussels holds 50% total surface area of European Parliament buildings and 3000 offices, whilst Strasbourg holds 30% total surface area of European Parliament buildings and 2200 offices.
• The cost of geographical dispersion is estimated to be 15% of EPs budget (but only 0,13% of the total EU budget). The main part of this sum is the costs of having 12 plenary sessions for 60 days a year in Strasbourg: 13% total budget of the EP.
• A study by Prof S. Hix (London School of Economics shows that: one quarter of MEPs regularly fail to turn up for votes throughout the entire week-long plenary session.
• The worst attendees are the Italian, Portuguese, and Irish MEPs. The most regular attendees are the Dutch, Greek and French MEPs. (EV 6-12 April 2000)
• The new building has cost 457 million Euro.
• Before Enlargement, 3000 people traveled to Brussels to Strasbourg from Brussels (a distance of 300 miles) for a week every month- with 10 new member states and over 100 new MEPs, this number has increased dramatically.  We are waiting on response from the Commission on questions detailing the exact number and cost.
• Before enlargement, the work time loss over these travels is estimated to be over 1 million Euro. On the contrary, when meetings are held in Brussels, only 170 people travel in from Luxembourg.
• 60 days costs of gas, water and electricity (GWE) for the building in Strasbourg is only 70% for the yearly costs for GWE of the Brussels building. 
• The lack of a single seat costs over €200 million a year. If the EP did its work in only one place- it would save the €200 million.

4. Actions by the European Parliament:

• In the 1990s, the Parliament discussed the seat question almost yearly in the plenary to set the schedule of meetings for the upcoming year
• Dec 10, 1999: 250 MEPs signed a letter indicating that: ‘the transhumance for one workplace to another and the difficult conditions governing our work and our access to Strasbourg no longer permit us to exercise our mandate with the dignity and commitment befitting a MEP Not to mention the drawbacks of the new building and the exorbitant costs deriving from the geographical fragmentation of the European Parliament’.
• December 13, 1999: 15 MEPs did not participate in the official opening of the new Strasbourg hemicycle. Aim of their action was to make a statement concerning their disagreement with the current geographical dispersion of their seat.
• April 13, 2000: in a resolution adopted with 401 to 77 votes,. the EP again strongly demanded for the right for the European Parliament to decide for itself where it should meet
• The Quorum initiative: 32 MEPs can request for a vote on the quorum. The quorum consists of a minimum of 1/3 of 626 MEPs to be present; if 209 MEPs are absent, no vote is allowed (Internal Rules of Parliament, nr 126).
• April 14, 2000: the quorum was requested by three Dutch MEPs (Van der Laan, Buitenweg, Van Hulten)
• At a Strasbourg meeting 15-19 May 2000, the Bureau and Conference of Presidents would discuss the necessity of the Friday plenary meetings.
• In its proposals for the 2000 IGC, the Parliament put forward a revision of Treaty article 289 so that it would be in its legal right to decide its own seat. However, since the Nice Treaty will be drafted in a French presidency, it does not seem very likely that this proposal will survive.