€114 million in EU cash spent on moving MEPs from Brussels to Strasbourg

Some €114 million is being spent every year in EU cash to move MEPs between the Brussels and Strasbourg parliamentary seats every month, a new assessment by the European Court of Auditors says.

Former minister Louis Galea is one of the members of the European Court of Auditors.

The EU has three seats for the European Parliament (Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg). MEPs, staff and files regularly move between Brussels, which hosts committee meetings and Strasbourg, where plenary sessions are held on a monthly basis. Luxembourg houses the Parliament's administrative offices.

Every month, between 3,000 and 4,000 people, among them roughly 800 MEPs, their assistants, employees and interpreters move 400 kilometres from Brussels to Strasbourg. Their workspaces are empty for 317 days per year.

Six political groups in the European Parliament support the Single Seat Campaign by now, calling for a centralisation of the European Parliament.

Conducted at the request of the European Parliament, the Court of Auditors' report showed that moving all employees from Luxembourg to Brussels, alone, would save €80 million over 50 years.

Relocating the Strasbourg seat to Brussels would cut costs even more, saving an estimated €2.5 billion in the next 50 years. That amounts to €113.8 million per year, the Court of Auditors calculated.

Strasbourg, in France, and Brussels, in Belgium, are EP seats laid down in the EU Treaties and only the Council of Ministers - the member states themselves - can change this and only in unanimity.