C-237/11 and C-238/11 France v. Parliament: moving in circles

Everybody is familiar with this: for one week in a month, the European Parliament has the habit to move everything from Brussels in Belgium to Strasbourg in France and sit in a session there. Ironically enough, the European Parliament itself is not happy about this. Yes, the European Parliament's official seat is Strasbourg, but all the EU institutions sit in Brussels and the eternal travelling is annoying and costs money.
On 9 March 2011, the European Parliament decided to do at least something about it. While determing the calendars of session periods in 2012 and in 2013, the European Parliament laid down that two of the twelve periods of monthly plenary sessions (which must take place in Strasbourg every year) will be shortened from 4 to 2 days and will take place during the same week of October. As a result, this decision scraps one "red week"* from the European Parliaments calendar.

No chance

Looking at the judgment in C-345/95 France v. Parliament, one cannot but conclude that France will inevitably succeed with its actions. The situation was slightly different in that case, but in reality there was hardly any difference. What the European Parliament did back in the 90s was simply reduce the number of Strasbourg sessions from 12 to 11. In this case, the number of sessions remains untouched, the only problem: two sessions will not last four but two days and will take place in one week (meaning that the two sessions together will last.. four days). There is therefore no reason to doubt the applicability of the Court's reasoning in C-345/95 also to this case.

In C-345/95, the Court said:
23 By adopting the Edinburgh Decision, therefore, the Governments of the Member States have now discharged their obligation under Articles 77 of the ECSC Treaty, 216 of the EC Treaty and 189 of the EAEC Treaty by definitively locating the seat of the Parliament in Strasbourg, whilst maintaining several places of work for that institution.
24 Given a plurality of working places, the exercise of that competence involved not only the obligation to determine the location of the seat of the Parliament but also the implied power to give precision to that term by indicating the activities which must take place there.
25 The intention of the Governments of the Member States was therefore to provide that the seat of the Parliament, in Strasbourg, be the principal place where it meets in ordinary plenary sitting, and to that end to specify the mandatory number of part-sessions which must be held there.
26 By indicating that the Parliament must hold monthly plenary part-sessions, the Governments of the Member States endorsed its practice of meeting in principle every month in Strasbourg, as indeed is provided by Rule 10 of its Rules of Procedure.
27 In fact, however, the Parliament does not hold any ordinary plenary part-sessions in August or, during election years, in June. In the years during which it has held a total of 12 plenary part-sessions in Strasbourg, two have been scheduled in October. That practice is not, in itself, in issue.
28 Furthermore, by specifying that the budget session is to be held in Strasbourg, the Governments of the Member States intended that the Parliament exercise its budgetary powers in plenary sitting, in accordance with Article 203 of the EC Treaty, during one of the ordinary plenary part-sessions held at the seat of the institution.
29 The Edinburgh Decision must thus be interpreted as defining the seat of the Parliament as the place where 12 ordinary plenary part-sessions must take place on a regular basis, including those during which the Parliament is to exercise the budgetary powers conferred upon it by the Treaty. Additional plenary part-sessions cannot therefore be scheduled for any other place of work unless the Parliament holds the 12 ordinary plenary part-sessions in Strasbourg, where it has its seat.
30 Contrary to the Parliament's contention, the Governments of the Member States have not, by so defining its seat, encroached upon the power of the Parliament to determine its own internal organization, conferred by Articles 25 of the ECSC Treaty, 142 of the EC Treaty and 112 of the EAEC Treaty.
...
33 That finding is not called into question by the need for the Parliament to refrain from holding ordinary plenary part-sessions during electoral campaigns, thus derogating every five years from its obligation to hold 12 ordinary plenary part-sessions at the seat of the institution. That derogation is justified for reasons inherent in the organization of elections for new representatives.
34 It follows that the contested vote is incompatible with the Edinburgh Decision to the extent that it provides for 11 ordinary plenary part-sessions in Strasbourg in 1996.

* In the calendar of the European Parliament, different weeks are marked in colours. The red colour stands for plenary sessions.
** Decision of 12 December 1992 by common agreement the representatives of the Governments of the Member States on the location of the seats of the institutions and of certain bodies and departments of the European Communities, on the basis of Articles 216 of the EEC Treaty, 77 of the ECSC Treaty and 189 of the EAEC Treaty (OJ 1992 C 341, p. 1)