East Mids MEP's Bid to Halt 'Travelling Circus'

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 14th Apr 2004

An East Midlands Euro-MP is hoping to save taxpayers more than £100 million a year by campaigning to clean up the European Parliament and put an end to its days as a 'travelling circus', moving between Brussels and Strasbourg.

Bill Newton Dunn is one of ninety parliamentarians from 13 countries who are members of the Campaign for Parliament Reform. The group aims to make the work of the European Parliament more open and efficient.

The Liberal Democrat MEP says that a fortune can be saved for taxpayers by ending the monthly movement of more than 3,000 MEPs, assistants and interpreters between Belgium and France. His reform group intends to ask every candidate standing in the European elections in June to pledge themselves to have a single base in Brussels and to vote for changes to ensure that travel expenses are reimbursed at cost.

But although the Strasbourg parliament building is used for only 4 days each month and stands empty for more than 300 days each year, MEPs are forced to meet there by an international treaty agreed by former Conservative Prime Minister John Major and ratified by a Conservative government.

Mr Newton Dunn accused John Major's successor, Tony Blair, of failing to make reform a priority in his discussions with other EU governments.

He said: "Euro-MPs now have more influence over the making of many laws than backbench domestic MPs at Westminster, and the powers of the European Parliament are growing all the time. Yet the despite the fact that a huge majority of MEPs want to change the ridiculous travel arrangements, we are forced to continue because the Prime Minister has not pushed for change.

"It is ridiculous that taxpayers' money should be wasted by having two separate places to meet when there is a perfectly good parliament building in Brussels, at the heart of the European institutions."

Strasbourg sits astride the border between France and Germany and is regarded as a symbol of peace within a once war-torn continent. The current arrangements for the parliament date from a treaty agreed between prime ministers in 1992 at a meeting in Edinburgh.