26-Dec-2010 - EXPRESS - WHY WE WANT A REFERENDUM FOR CHRISTMAS ;-)

EU LEAVES HEAT AND POWER ON AT PARLIAMENT

EU bosses spend a fortune on illuminating and heating rooms which are unused for weeks on end

Sunday December 26,2010

 

By James Fielding

EU BOSSES are wasting thousands of pounds of British taxpayers’ money by keeping hundreds of lights burning all night in empty offices at the Strasbourg Parliament.

A fortune is spent every year illuminating and heating rooms which are unused for weeks on end.

The flagrant waste also makes a mockery of the EU’s attempts to reduce its carbon footprint and deliver a “low-energy economy”.

MEPs gather at the £400million building, on France’s border with Germany, for just four days every month.

UKIP MEP Mike Nattrass, who took this picture, last night branded the waste “disgraceful”. He photographed lights blazing away in the Parliament’s main Louise Weiss building and in the adjoining Winston Churchill block.

Light switches and radiators were left on in empty offices, hallways and even the canteen on Thursday evening, long after Eurocrats had packed up and left.

Mr Nattrass, MEP for the West Midlands, added: “This is just another example of the EU gravy train. This has gone on for too long, I am sick and tired of walking past the Strasbourg Parliament and seeing all the office lights left on when nobody is in them.

“On Thursday, voting finished just after midday and MEPs all started to drift off as usual. Hours later I took photographs of light beaming out of the Louise Weiss building and it wasn’t from one room but lots of them.

“I then went into the building the following day on Friday and checked to see if the heating was on and it was. The place was virtually deserted.

“Hardworking Britons will be sick to their stomachs to know their cash is being wasted in this manner. It’s absolutely disgraceful.”

Mr Nattrass also revealed that the majority of the 2,000 offices inside the Parliament have showers, washbasins and TVs that can pick up channels from all over the world. “It’s needless,” he said. “I’ve never used the shower in my office as long as I’ve been an MEP. Why would I need to? I have one before I leave the hotel in the morning.”

The monthly jaunt from the European Parliament in Brussels Belgium to Strasbourg, 216 miles away, is estimated to cost the public an annual £200million.

Yet MEPs are there for voting sessions on just 48 days a year.

Moving various files and equipment between the two cities takes 30 men and 10 large trucks.

The huge cost involved has led to repeated calls to have Brussels as the sole location of the Parliament.

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