For more than a year, the European Parliament did not meet in Strasbourg due to the pandemic of Covid-19. A group of personalities committed to Europe is mobilizing to demand the return of Parliament to the Alsatian capital for its plenary sessions – the weeks when MEPs vote on the texts – and sign a platform on Monday 3 May in The Latest News from Alsace .
This open letter is intended for Clément Beaune, the Secretary of State for European Affairs. The authors ask him to consider an appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to impose this return, a controversial subject. between Paris and the president of the European institution.
The collective is made up of several personalities from civil society, such as Jean-Dominique Giuliani from the Schuman Foundation or French associations such as the European Movement, the Young Europeans or the Union of European Federalists. From a political point of view, MEPs such as Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe), David Cormand (Les Verts), Anne Sander (PPE) or the German Evelyne Gebhart (S & D) are also signatories.
A formal notice from the European Parliament
“There are a lot of initiatives launched in recent months on this subject. But no one attacked on the legal basis ”, explains to West France Hervé Moritz of the European Alsace Movement at the origin of this open letter. “However, the plenary sessions now take place partly face-to-face in Brussels and no longer remotely as was the case in 2020. There is therefore no longer any reason why this should not happen in Strasbourg, especially that there is no major difference in the health situation between the two cities now. “ The open letter points out, moreover, that “The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe manages to organize its plenary sessions in Strasbourg”.
But Hervé Moritz hopes that there will not be to go as far as the CJEU: “Our idea is to put the European Parliament on notice to avoid having to go to court”, while recalling that “The Court has always ruled in favor of Strasbourg because the treaty is very clear on this subject”.
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