Location: Rue Lucien Febvre
The city of Strasbourg in France is the official seat of the European
Parliament. By the decision of the European Council from Edinburgh on
December 11 and 12, 1992 and Article 341 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union, the Parliament is legally obliged to
hold at least twelve plenary sessions a year, each of which usually
lasts four days. Most of the meetings, however, take place in Brussels
and some work is done in Luxembourg City. Also, all votes of the
European Parliament must be held in Strasbourg. "Additional" sessions
and meetings of parliamentary committees are held in another
headquarters in the Espace Léopold premises in Brussels. Although de
facto the majority of the Parliament's work now takes place in a second
seat in Brussels, there is a legal obligation to keep Strasbourg as its
official seat, a situation that is met with numerous criticisms from the
European Parliament itself, as well as from many interest groups,
administrative staff and environmental associations.
Five
Parliament buildings, all named after prominent European politicians,
are located in the so-called To the "European quarter" of the city,
which it shares with other European organizations independent of the
European Union. In the past, the Parliament had a joint hall for debates
with the Council of Europe, but today the main Louise Weiss building,
inaugurated in 1999, is available exclusively to the Parliament.
Louise Weiss Palace (European Parliament Building 4 - IPE 4) is named
after Louise Weiss, a former French Member of Parliament), and is
located in the Wacken district of Strasbourg, south of Schiltigheim,
between a former 1920s workers' suburban colony (Cité ouvrière) Cité
Ungemach and a series of buildings from the 1950s located at the
Strasbourg fair, some of which had to be demolished to make room for the
new building. Built at a cost of 3.1 billion French francs (470 million
euros) at the junction of the Ile and the Marne-Rhine canal, it houses
the main hall for plenary sessions, the largest of all parliamentary
halls on the continent (750 seats, expandable to 785 for members of the
European Parliament and 680 places for visitors), and 18 smaller meeting
rooms and a total of 1133 offices for members of the Parliament and
supporting staff. The Louise Weiss Palace communicates with the Winston
Churchill and Salvadora de Madariaga buildings via a covered pedestrian
bridge.
With an area of 220,000 m² and a recognizable tower 60
meters high, it is one of the largest and most visible buildings in
Strasbourg. The Louise Weiss Palace was designed by a team of Parisian
architects, who said they were inspired by Roman amphitheatres. After
the winning project was approved in an international competition in
1991, work began in May 1995 with the help of twelve tower cranes,
ordered by the Société d'Aménagement et d'Équipement de la Region de
Strasbourg on behalf of the City of Strasbourg. At that time, the
construction of this facility was one of the largest construction sites
of the decade in Europe. The official opening of the building was on
December 14, 1999, and the red ribbon was cut together by the French
President Jacques Chirac and the Speaker of the Parliament, Nicole
Fontaine. In EP internal documents, the building is called "LOW".
The body of the building is 60 meters high and is intentionally unfinished on one side, which represents significant symbolism. The unfinished part was initially supposed to be oriented towards the east, i.e. towards Eastern Europe, because at the time of the building's completion, no country from the former Soviet bloc had joined the EU. However, the open side of the tower ultimately faces west. American conservative political commentator and conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck suggested in 2010 that the design of the tower consciously echoed Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Viennese painting of the Tower of Babel.
On January 14, 2009, the European Parliament decided to name the inner courtyard of the palace after the recently deceased Polish MEP Bronisław Geremek, calling it "Agora Bronisław Geremek". The inner courtyard was officially opened on April 21, 2009. Since 2004, the center of the Agora has been decorated with the glass sculpture "United Country" by the artist Tomasz Urbanowicz, which symbolizes openness and readiness for further expansion of the European Union. The architectural studio approved the installation of the sculpture and it was officially installed as a gift from the city of Wrocław in the presence of Josep Borrell, then President of the European Parliament.
Members of the European Parliament are located in the semi-circular
main hall, grouped into political groups and distributed mainly from
left to right depending on the perception of positioning on the
political spectrum, while independent members are located in the rear
right part of the hall. All places are equipped with microphones,
headphones for listening to translation and equipment for electronic
voting. Group leaders sit on the front benches in the center, and in the
very center is a podium for guest speakers. The remaining segment of the
circular chamber primarily consists of a raised area where the president
and staff sit. Behind them, the EU flag is attached to the wall and the
national flags of the member states are hung on poles on either side of
the EU flag.
The ushers' cabins are located at the back and along
the sides of the hall, while the gallery for the public and journalists
is located above the hall around the entire perimeter. Additional
seating is placed to the side of the raised center and is reserved for
the European Council on the far left and the European Commission on the
far right. The hall has an entirely contemporary design, the walls are
completely covered with luminous panels, and the members of the European
Parliament are seated in wide blue armchairs.
On August 7, 2008, 10% of the ceiling of the main hall collapsed. No
one was injured, as the Parliament was not in session at the time (it
was during the summer holidays), but several seats were damaged. The
first part of the ceiling collapsed at 18:00 CET, and the second part at
22:36. No extreme weather conditions were recorded and the construction
was new, so it was assumed that the false ceiling had structural
defects. The president's office said that a third of the ceiling was
completely or partially damaged and that "preliminary results revealed
that the partial collapse of the ceiling resulted from the failure of
the supports that anchor the suspended ceiling to the actual ceiling
structure."
Repairs began immediately, but it became clear that
the damage could not be repaired in time for the next session, so the
plenary session had to be moved to the main hall of the Parliament in
Brussels starting on 1 September. It was expected that the Parliament
would return to Strasbourg for the session scheduled for September 22,
but even then it had to stay in Brussels due to the delay in the work of
security inspections. The event was welcomed with joy by those who
oppose the presence of the Parliament in Strasbourg, and was ridiculed
by Eurosceptics who, after the incident, wore helmets at the first
plenary session in Brussels (if a session had been held at the time of
the collapse of the ceiling, the material would have fallen right on the
members of the Eurosceptic parties).
Louise Weiss Palace in Strasbourg has been the target of criticism for its complex interior design: "It's obviously transparent, but it's almost impossible to move around. There are bridges between different levels, but you can't tell exactly where they lead." When it opened, some criticized the building for being "shabby, dark, difficult to navigate", and the telecommunications equipment and elevators had technical difficulties. Parliament Speaker Nicole Fontaine said she would rather walk up to the ninth floor where her office was located than risk being trapped in the notorious elevators. In 2002, the causative agent of Legionnaires' disease appeared in the building's water supply, mainly as a result of non-use for most of the year.
There are four outbuildings across the river separating them from the
Louise Weiss Palace. Like Louise Weiss, most of them follow the
"European Parliament Building" (French: Immeuble du Parlement Européen)
numbering system of 1, 2 and 3, with the newest building (named Václav
Havel) not yet (July 2017) officially numbered 5. Buildings 1 and 2 form
a unique complex by the river. Buildings 3 and "5" are located away from
the river in the interior and are connected by a glass bridge. The site
where the complex was built previously housed the Société des nageurs
strasbourgeois (SNS) swimming pool, built in 1952 and demolished in 1978
to make way for new buildings.
The Winston Churchill building
(IPE 1) is located on Avenue du Président Schuman, in the Orangerie
district. It houses the administrative staff and auxiliary structures.
The Salvador de Madariaga building (IPE 2), along the Quai du Bassin de
l'Ill, is next to the Winston Churchill building. Both buildings were
designed by the architect François Sauer in collaboration with Jean-Paul
Friedmann, and they actually form one unique complex with an area of
58,400 m². The complex was built at a cost of 81 million euros,
inaugurated in 1980 (with major alterations in 1988 and 1991 due to the
construction of IPE 3) and designed in a postmodern style often
characterized by intricate, serpentine architecture and glazed facades.
In the Salvador de Madariaga building, there is also another EU body
whose official seat is Strasbourg (since 1992): the European Ombudsman.
The buildings were at the center of controversy over allegations of
excessive rent, until they were eventually bought by Parliament in 2006.
In October 2007, it was discovered that the buildings contained more
asbestos than had been thought before they were purchased. However, the
amount of asbestos is still within legal limits and is not considered a
risk to public health, and is limited only to certain rooms. The
previous owner of the building undertook to remove asbestos from the
buildings.
The Pierre Pflimlin Building (IPE 3), a relatively low
heart-shaped building built at the intersection of Avenue du Président
Robert Schuman and Allée Spach, was opened in 1991 as the press and mass
media headquarters (Centar de presse et d'information) at a cost of 38
million euros and was named after the former president of the European
Parliament on July 6, 2007. It is the smallest building in the entire
complex (21,000 m2) and is also the only one that is not located next to
a river or a canal. Among other things, it houses the translation staff.
The Václav Havel building was officially opened by EP President
Antonio Tajani and French Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau
on July 5, 2017. The building was originally built in 1954 and belonged
to the Council of Europe, which used it until 2007. In 2012, it was
bought by the European Parliament, after which the building was
completely deconstructed and renovated.
The current buildings were built as infrastructure for the
enlargement of the European Union in 1995 (and the planned enlargement
to the east in 2004). Due to the acceptance of new members, the
Parliament needed a larger main hall for holding debates and more
offices for MEPs. Before that, the Parliament shared facilities with the
Council of Europe, which built the main hall at its headquarters: the
European Palace. This structure was ceremonially given to the Parliament
for use during the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on
January 28, 1977.
However, the sharing of this chamber with the
Council led to confusion among television audiences who were not sure
which institution was using it at the time. This was exacerbated by the
European Union and the Council of Europe using the same flag, although
they each had their own emblems.
Before the European Palace was
built in 1977, the two institutions also shared the Maison de l'Europe
("House of Europe") from 1958. The House of Europe was a temporary
building of purely functional architecture and was inaugurated in 1950.
It was located in the place where now there is a lawn leading to the
European Palace.