“There is something behind it we cannot tolerate. Now we are not respecting European treaties,” French Civil Service Minister Amélie de Montchalin told French radio on Tuesday. “The seat of the European Parliament is in Strasbourg. It is not a French invention. It is not a fantasy. It is written in the treaties.”

The Strasbourg migration was enshrined in European treaties after French leaders successfully demanded a major European institution of their own. One goal was to prevent the 27-member political bloc from being overly centered in a single city.

Many members of the European Parliament loathe the monthly journey, which requires 705 lawmakers and thousands of staffers, lobbyists and journalists to travel for at least four hours from Brussels. The circus typically arrives Monday afternoons and departs mid-Thursday. Trucks shuttle 6,000 plastic trunks of files. The operation costs European taxpayers about $130 million a year.

But French leaders are so attached to it that they are demanding the process carry on even in the middle of the pandemic, when both Strasbourg and Brussels …continued .
[Source: Washington Post]