The European Parliament returns to its seat in Strasbourg for the June session – POLITICO
The European Parliament will return to its seat in Strasbourg for the plenary session in June, the office of President David Sassoli announced on Tuesday in a note to the secretaries general of the political groups, according to two officials quoted in Brussels Playbook.
The argument behind this decision is that the improvement in the epidemiological situation and the progress made in the vaccination campaign allow MEPs to return to the main seat of Parliament. Senior European leaders have already gathered in Strasbourg this weekend for the inaugural ceremony of the Conference on the Future of Europe, whose first plenary session will also be held in the Alsatian city in June.
The first plenary session of the Parliament back to its seat since February 2020 will however still face certain restrictions: the in-person presence of staff will be reduced and MEPs will still be allowed to follow online if they wish.
Plans to return to Strasbourg were last drawn up for the September 2020 session, to be canceled a week before due to the quarantine requirement that MEPs would have faced upon their return to Brussels. The Parliament closest to the French city took place in December 2020, when Sassoli delivered a speech to a practically empty hemicycle in Strasbourg before the plenary continued in Brussels.
Many MEPs are opposed to the seat of Parliament being in a different city than the rest of the European institutions, which in pre-pandemic times meant a “traveling circus»Between Brussels and Strasbourg several times a year. Several voices took place with the aim of modifying this configuration, which is provided for by the EU treaties. French authorities and local businesses in Strasbourg disagree, with President Macron pressuring Sassoli to return to the city and return to normal.