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  David Sumberg MEP   

 

BRINGING COMMONSENSE TO BRUSSELS

Date:  26/03/2009

 

North West Conservative MEP calls on Gordon Brown to scrap Strasbourg
 

North West Conservative Euro MP David Sumberg has used the occasion of Gordon Brown's visit to the European Parliament to demand that the Prime Minister should start the process to bring to an end to the European Parliament's two-seat operation.

Twelve times a year the European Parliament decamps from Brussels and relocates 250 miles away in Strasbourg - on the Franco-German border. The so-called 'travelling circus' costs the taxpayer around £180 million a year and causes tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2 to be emitted into the atmosphere unnecessarily.

The two-seat operation is enshrined in the treaties of the European Union, meaning that MEPs are not able to change the arrangement. Only national governments can rewrite the treaties and, so far, Gordon Brown has failed to put the issue on the table at a European summit.
 

Mr Sumberg said:

"Moving the European Parliament from one country to another is completely pointless and a huge waste of taxpayers' money. There is no practical reason why we should go to Strasbourg as we have all the facilities we need in Brussels.

"The two-seat operation of the European Parliament is a small amount of money compared to the vast debts being run up by our government this year, which are now larger than the entire EU budget; but scrapping it would send an important message that the EU is serious about cutting waste."

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