One Seat for the European Parliament
Since the early 1950's, the location of the European Parliament and its offices has been a source of controversy. Strasbourg in France, Luxembourg and Brussels (in Belgium) have at different times accomodated different parts of the Parliamentary structure.
In the late 80's the Parliament started to call for these long term arguments to be settled, and for there to be one designated home for the Parliament. This of course proved extremely difficult as none of the three countries wanted to give up the lucrative and prestigious position of being the seat of such power.
The situation is now that the General Secretariat of the Parliament is seated in Luxembourg, the official home of the Parliament is in Brussels, but 12 times a year the whole Parliament is packed up and moved (at great expense) to Strasbourg for the plenary voting sessions. Whole offices are packed into large trunks and shipped up to Strasbourg and then back again to Brussels at the end of the week.
This costs European taxpayers approximately £176,000,000 a year! That's right - one hundred and seventy six MILLION pounds every year.
This wasteful and expensive practice has become known as the "travelling circus" due to the vast amount of trunks being lugged between the two seats. MEPs of all parties and nationalities have campaigned and voted repeatedly to rationalise this arrangement and meet only in Brussels. Each time this happens the French defeat the motion somehow, or appeal against it.
This year (2011) the Parliament has voted successfully to hold two Strasbourg sessions back-to-back to reduce the cost at least partially.
Sharon has worked alongside the EU-wide "One Seat" campaign who have gathered more than a million signatures on their petition to declare Brussels the permanent seat of the Parliament. She continues to work with fellow MEPs to try to find a way to bring this campaign to a successful conclusion.