French minister's fury over 'astonishing' EU location vote

(STRASBOURG) - A French minister denounced a text adopted by the European Parliament on Wednesday and seen by Paris as a step to moving the legislature permanently to Brussels as having "no legal weight".

Helene Conway-Mouret, a junior foreign minister, said it was "astonishing" the European Parliament "thought it useful to devote energy" to a vote on a text that backs changing the European Union treaty to allow the parliament itself, rather than member states, to decide on where it sits.

Backers of the contested bid voted 483 to 141 in favour of the text on Wednesday, with 34 abstentions.

Conway-Mouret further accused Brussels of wasting time on a move "legally bound for failure and politically incomprehensible," which had "absolutely no legal weight".

At present, the parliament meets either in the Belgian capital or in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, with more than 700 deputies and officials commuting between the two for a few days a month.

The parliament would be "more effective, cost-efficient and respectful of the environment if it were located in a single place," the text said.

It estimated extra annual costs of the shuttle between the two cities at 156-204 million euros ($210-275 million), including the additional cost of the Strasbourg site at 103 million euros.

Carbon dioxide emissions linked to the to-ing and fro-ing were estimated at between 11,000 and 19,000 tonnes.

A symbol of Franco-German reconciliation when decided on in the 1950s, the decision to give the seat to the French city on the German border is laid down in the EU's treaty which cannot be changed without a unanimous agreement of member states -- a change France would never agree to.

Administration of the parliament is based separately in Luxembourg.

In their text however, MEPs proposed using another article enabling parliament to kick off a treaty revision procedure after commissioning an opinion survey to gauge European citizens' sentiment on the matter.

British MEP Ashley Fox, one of the sponsors of the text, said only four MEPs stood up to voice their opposition "and they were all French."

British eurosceptic party UKIP was highly critical of the move, saying it was "an empty PR exercise by MEPs embarrassed by the ridiculous waste, but they already know it is a waste of time and effort, for both France and Luxembourg will shoot this fox.

"A veto looms and MEPs know it," it said.