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European Union Empty Parliament Democracy - Inside the European Parliament in Strasbourg by Mauro Bottaro
The European Parliament is the directly elected body of the EU. It has recently been object of debate and dispute for several reasons, and amongst them the absurdity of the double meeting places and enormous costs that this moving from one place to the next has meant. Every three weeks all the offices, objects and documents belonging to the members of Parliament, all 750 of them including the presidency. Trucks are loaded and unloaded from Brussels to Strasbourg 10 times per year to enable the parliamentarians and all the staff following them to sit at the monthly session in France. The sense of this very expensive operation has been often disputed by MEP and various commissions, but when the dispute comes to the vote in the parliament itself, no change is implemented.
Each year the activities of the Parliament cycle between committee weeks where reports are discussed in committees and inter-parliamentary delegations meet, political group weeks for members to discuss work within their political groups and session weeks where members spend 3½ days in Strasbourg for part-sessions.
Speakers in the European Parliament are entitled to speak in any of the EU's 23 official languages, and this is another recurring object of debate, as all the staff used for simultaneous translation amounts to enormous costs of the EU, and its citizens.
