Travel and accommodation savings of nearly €2 million were made in 2008 when MEPs were forced to relocate to Brussels due to a collapsed ceiling in the European Parliament’s Strasbourg plenary chamber, according to documents published this month.
Responding to recent questions from MEPs, parliament’s top official, Klaus Welle, estimated that the additional costs associated with holding two September sessions in Brussels as opposed to Strasbourg amounted to €818,740, largely due to train and hotel cancellation fees.
When subtracted from the €2,549,826 in additional savings however, the net difference was a gain of €1,731,086, said the secretary general.
The unexpected saving in EU taxpayers’ money stems from the partial collapse of the Strasbourg ‘hemicycle’ ceiling on the 8 August 2008 while MEPs were away on their summer holidays.
Reports at the time suggested a first part of the ceiling came crashing down around 6pm in Strasbourg, followed by another section four hours later. The event, remarked some European newspaper readers the following morning, was a “superb metaphor” for the European Union.
Since then, parliament’s plenary ceiling has been installed with a complex system of sensors so that any movement triggers an alarm before pieces of plaster start to fall.
The 2008 event restarted the long-running debate over the EU’s “traveling circus” under which MEPs hold committee meetings in Brussels but plenary sessions in the northern French city of Strasbourg.
