Complaints from EU lawmakers about the various indignities of the monthly trek to Strasbourg for plenary week aren’t rare. Yet one MEP got more than they bargained for after a particularly grim hotel stay — that resulted in them seeking medical treatment.
The unidentified lawmaker called for help after “a case of poor hygiene … in a hotel during an official mission,” according to the minutes of an internal administrative body meeting.
The hotel conditions “led the affected member to seek treatment from the Parliament’s Medical Service,” said the notes of the meeting, which took place on April 29. The issue was raised by Socialist lawmaker Marc Angel, from Luxembourg, who sits on the body.
Angel, who declined to divulge the location or name of the hotel, nor the MEP affected, told POLITICO he raised the case as an example to showcase “the need to establish a procedure for handling hygiene-related issues that may arise during official missions involving Members or colleagues.”
Such a procedure would allow hygiene complaints to be swiftly flagged to Parliament’s travel agency and could lead to problematic hotels being removed from the accommodation options offered to lawmakers.
The hotel was in Strasbourg, where lawmakers, assistants, officials, lobbyists and journalists converge each month for the European Parliament’s plenary session, according to two people briefed on the matter, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive incident. One of the people said the hotel was not included on the travel agency’s recommended list.
The episode is not the first time Strasbourg accommodation has landed Parliament in uncomfortable territory. In 2021, then-Parliament President David Sassoli was hospitalized with pneumonia after contracting Legionnaires’ disease around the time of a stay in a Strasbourg hotel. Sassoli died the following January.
The latest incident marks another unwelcome footnote to the long-running debate over Parliament’s monthly migration between Brussels and Strasbourg. The arrangement, enshrined in EU treaties, has for years drawn criticism from lawmakers who argue it is costly, cumbersome and environmentally wasteful. The EU’s auditors estimated in 2014 that maintaining Parliament’s second seat costs taxpayers €114 million annually.
“Parliament expects accommodation used for official missions to meet appropriate standards of quality, safety and hygiene,” said a Parliament spokesperson, granted anonymity in line with the institution’s rules.
“When a complaint is received, it is assessed by the competent services and, where necessary, raised with the travel provider and the hotel concerned to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future,” they added.
Dirty Strasbourg hotel leads MEP to seek medical help
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