STRASBOURG TRAVELLING CIRCUS TO BE DISCUSSED AT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

9.00.00am GMT Mon 25th Feb 2008

The OneSeat.eu petition, which aims to make a permanent home in Brussels for the European Parliament rather than the current 'travelling circus' between Strasbourg and Brussels, will be the subject of an animated debate in the Parliament's Petitions Committee later today.

The move comes over a year after the petition was registered with the committee under the citizens' participation rules. Over 1.2 million people across the EU have signed it.

Local Euro-MP Liz Lynne, who has regularly campaigned with fellow MEPs against the current costly rotating arrangement as a member of the Campaign for Parliamentary Reform (CPR), commented:

"Getting this petition on the agenda is a major victory for all the citizens and MEPs who want an end to this needless cost and waste. However the Strasbourg buck stops with national governments who should have done more in the past to amend this anomaly, and whose responsibility it remains to change it.

"Over £130 million each year is spent purely on moving 785 MEPs, their staff and trunks of documents between Strasbourg and Brussels. It is ludicrous that we have two separate places to meet when we have a perfectly good parliament building in Brussels at the heart of the European institutions.

"Not only is it a total waste of taxpayers' money, but the travelling involved causes large amounts of unnecessary carbon emissions. It is also exhausting for the members, as well as impractical and wasteful in terms of working time lost; the sooner we settle on one home for the European parliament the better."

ENDS

Notes to editors:

A young Austrian who had campaigned for a single seat of the European Parliament by sending countless emails to his friends, will present the petition in the presence of MEPs, the Commission and representatives of EU member states. He and members of the Campaign for Parliamentary Reform (CPR, of which Liz Lynne is a member) will engage in an open debate, which marks the first "official" exchange of views on this contentious issue in any of the European Institutions.

Within weeks the OneSeat.eu petition was signed by hundreds of thousands of Europeans, with the first million signatures being handed to the EU Commission in September 2006. However, even after officially receiving them, neither the EU Commission nor the EU Council of Ministers (consisting of national government representatives) have followed up on it. Nevertheless, if the Lisbon Treaty is signed and ratified by member states, citizens' initiatives will become a reality and can trigger action from the EU institutions.

In a survey of MEPs last summer, a majority of those who voted wanted an end to the Strasbourg Parliament in favour of a single seat. The survey was organised by the Campaign for Parliament Reform (CPR) the international, cross-party grouping, of which Liz Lynne is a member who also organised the www.oneseat.eu petition. Of the 39% of MEPs who participated, 89% voted in favour of a fixed parliament and 81% wanted the permanent seat to be in Brussels. In addition, 84% felt the Parliament itself should have the right to decide its location.