Sign up now to scrap Strasbourg

12.01.09pm GMT Sat 27th May 2006

Diana Wallis MEP amongst some of the many hundreds of trunks which have to be shipped from Brussels to Strasbourg every month and which contain all the papers which MEPs and administrators need

Liberal Democrat MEPs are asking Epping Forest residents to back a new campaign to scrap the monthly European travelling circus to Strasbourg. A Liberal initiative, the 'One Seat' petition (www.oneseat.eu) needs the support of one million EU citizens before being given to the European Commission in protest against an absurd agreement that is costing EU taxpayers 200 million euros a year.

As a potent symbol of European unification, Strasbourg was chosen in 1952 as a temporary home as Brussels didn't have a suitable building. Now 732 MEPs together with their staff and trunks full of files, make the monthly trip from Brussels to Strasbourg, leaving an enormous carbon foot-print in their wake.