Keep the European Parliament in Strasbourg to fight Euroskepticism, says city’s mayor

STRASBOURG — Green Mayor Jeanne Barseghian dismissed climate-based arguments for canceling Strasbourg as a seat of the European Parliament, arguing it wards off another existential threat: Euroskepticism.

Hundreds of parliamentarians jet to the Alsatian capital from their constituencies for four action-packed days per month, filled with last-minute negotiations and crunch votes that EU treaties require to take place in Strasbourg 12 times per year.

The last traveling circus before fall will occur next week when thousands of officials, parliamentary assistants and members of European Parliament again troop off to Strasbourg, where they will discuss legislation on rewilding nature, electric vehicles and press freedom. That is just a handful of the 177 legislative files that remain open a year out from the 2024 EU election.

Despite the climate and energy usage impact, travel to Strasbourg allows for a crucial counterpoint to a negative perception of Brussels as a nest of technocrats and nefarious lobbyists, where directly elected MEPs are relegated to a position of lesser importance compared to other players, Barseghian argued.

"The image we have of this European sphere in Brussels is a form of opaque technocracy where lobbies come to lay down the law and don’t respond to the needs of citizens," Barseghian told POLITICO in her office.

The Parliament is in some respects more "powerful" in Strasbourg than in Brussels, where committee work takes place, she added, because it provides breathing room from European Commission officials who wield the power of proposing EU legislation — and also away from pesky lobbyists.

“When they are here, they are in an environment where they’re dedicated and focused to what they have to vote on in the European Parliament," she said.

"It’s important to have an independent Parliament that comes to sit in Strasbourg and which represents European citizens. And that, for me, is fighting against Euroskepticism," the 42-year-old said.

Thousands of flights

There is no contradiction in being a Green mayor and welcoming thousands of people by plane, Barseghian insisted.

According to her, some two-thirds of the Parliament’s 705 lawmakers fly to Strasbourg, landing in the Frankfurt Airport across the border in Germany and then traveling by car or train into the city.

“I’m not going to say: ‘No more flights,’" she said. "We’re the second French diplomatic city, we’re [a] European capital," she added, describing herself as "pragmatic."

The Strasbourg seat is of vital importance to French politicians of other stripes, too. In a bid to cement the EU’s presence in the city, the French government recently offered the Parliament a tempting deal to rent a brand new office block in Strasbourg which it plans to buy for millions of euros.

Pushed on how she could justify the travel emissions as a Green politician, she replied: “I’m not saying it’s not a factor, but I think it’s very reductive ... What counts for me is how to make European democracy vibrant.”

"Or else we say that being Green means having no more exchange between European people, no more big international summits. At a certain point — I’m sorry — but democracy has to live. All human activities generate greenhouse gases," Barseghian said.

Barseghian, an avid cyclist whose six-year term as mayor is at its midway point, is also pressuring national ministers in France and Germany, along with mayors in Brussels and Luxembourg, to connect their cities more easily by train.

“If we want to truly lower greenhouse gas emissions, you massively invest in rail today to allow big connections and a real European rail network.”

The European Parliament charters two trains each plenary session specifically for EU officials and parliamentary staff to travel between Brussels and Strasbourg and avoid using cars or airplanes.

The Parliament’s environmental report from 2019, the most recent pre-pandemic analysis, showed that the carbon footprint for traveling between the locations was just 2.4 percent of the Parliament’s emissions — not exactly a planet-saving proportion. A far larger component of the Parliament’s emissions, 16.1 percent, was down to the travel of MEPs more generally — largely from plane travel to and from their home nations.

There’s one other reason limiting all of Parliament’s work to Brussels may not be the most climate-conscious choice: The Strasbourg parliament sourced 62.6 percent of its energy from renewable power generated on site in 2020. For Brussels, that figure was 0.91 percent.

Karl Mathiesen contributed reporting.