European Parliament to return to Strasbourg seat for June session

The European Parliament will return to its seat in Strasbourg for the June plenary session, President David Sassoli’s office said on Tuesday in a note to the secretaries-general of the political groups, according to two officials cited in Brussels Playbook.

The argument behind the move is that the improved epidemiological situation and the progress made in the vaccination campaign make it possible for MEPs to return to the Parliament’s main seat. Top EU leaders already gathered in Strasbourg this weekend for the inaugural ceremony of the Conference on the Future of Europe, the first plenary session of which will also be held in the Alsatian city in June.

The Parliament’s first plenary back in its seat since February 2020 will however still face some restrictions: in-person staff presence will be reduced, and MEPs will still be allowed to follow online if they choose to do so.

Plans to return to Strasbourg were last made for the September 2020 session, only to be cancelled a week before due to the quarantine requirement MEPs would have faced upon their return to Brussels. The closest Parliament has come to the French city was in December 2020, when Sassoli held gave a speech to a virtually empty hemicycle in Strasbourg before the plenary continued in Brussels.

Many MEPs oppose the Parliament’s seat being in a different city to the rest of the European institutions, which in pre-pandemic times meant a costly “traveling circus” between Brussels and Strasbourg several times a year. Several votes have been held in attempts to change this setup, which is provided by EU treaties. French officials and local Strasbourg businesses disagree, with President Macron having put pressure on Sassoli to come back to the city and return to normality.