IN Britain, like every EU member state, has one appointed European Commissioner and one judge at the European Court of Justice. It has seventy-three out of 751 elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Ministers who take decisions in meetings of the European Council must win allies to get their way under Qualified Majority Voting but have a veto in some sensitive areas like treaty change, tax, defence and foreign policy.
OUT Britain will regain control over EU policy areas but companies trading in Europe will still have to abide by standards and rules set in Brussels with no representation from UK ministers or MEPs. If the UK wants to stay in the Single Market, it must follow all the laws on the free movement of capital, goods, people and services without having a vote on them.
KEY STATS Britain’s voice in the European Parliament diminished from 18.2 per cent of MEPs to 9.7 per cent as more nations joined the EU. From May 2014, it has the joint third highest number of MEPs with Italy after Germany (ninety-six) and France (seventy-four). Turnout in the 2009 European Parliament elections was 34.7 per cent in the UK compared to 65.1 per cent in the 2010 general election.
One week a month, the 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), up to 2,000 staff and all their paperwork make the 250-mile trip from their offices in Brussels to their other offices in Strasbourg. Under the Treaty of Amsterdam, agreed by Sir John Major and ratified under Tony Blair, the European Parliament must meet twelve times a year in the capital of Alsace, a German-speaking region of France chosen to symbolise the post-war reconciliation between Europe’s two great foes. But because the parliament has a summer holiday and does not sit in August, the whole travelling circus by road, train and plane must take place on two separate occasions in October to make up the dozen sessions ‘of equal duration’ enshrined in EU law. The whole exercise costs at least €180 million a year, meaning that the European Parliament’s seven-year budget for 2014–20 has set aside £1 billion for shuttling back and forth between its two homes.4 And when the European Parliament moves, the twenty-eight members of the European Commission also hold their weekly ‘college’ meeting in Strasbourg, accompanied by their key staff. ‘The current arrangements are indefensible – ludicrously expensive and impractical. And one of the best adverts for EU waste,’ said David Lidington, the UK’s Minister for Europe. Roland Ries, the mayor of Strasbourg, has a different view: ‘The legitimacy of Strasbourg is derived not only from law but, more importantly, from history. As a city that symbolises Franco-German reconciliation, it is the European capital of peace, democracy and human rights.’ Holding the parliament full time in Brussels would save 19,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, which would contribute to EU emissions targets.5 MEPs voted in 2011 to merge two of the sessions to save a bit of money but this was immediately challenged at the European Court of Justice by the governments of France and Luxembourg (the Grand Duchy hosts a third site of the European Parliament, its secretariat empl