An opportunity to save taxpayers' money – but MEPs just don't care 1

Mark Wallace Campaign, European Union

There's disappointing news from Brussels, where MEPs it seems simply can't be bothered to go to the effort of savings taxpayers £200 million a year. The One Seat campaign collected the signatures of 1.2 million people to call for an end to the ludicrous practice of moving the whole EU parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg every month, at vast expense. Unfortunately, theParliament.com is reporting that only 235 MEPs have signed the declaration to end this farce, which is a long way short of the 393 MEPs required to move the proposal on towards becoming official policy.

This is a great shame. The Strasbourg move, which involves literally packing up MEPs' offices into crates and shipping them on a special train from Parliament building to parallel Parliament building, was agreed purely as a sop to the vanity of the then French Government, and is of no actual or even procedural benefit to the working of the Parliament.

The fact that so many MEPs seem to care so little about the huge cost involved is emblematic of the problems with the EU. As long as they are well-compensated, given cushy pensions and kept wined and dined the majority of our representatives apparently aren't bothered about the running up of unnecessary bills at taxpayers' expense. I suppose in a way the monthly Strasbourg-Brussels pilgrimage is quite a good summary of the current state of the EU as a whole: unnecessary, wasteful, so used to navel-gazing that it can't see the absurdity of its actions and lacking any regard for public opinion.