Drinking in Europe's political saloon

By Niall O'Gallagher
Political Reporter, BBC Scotland

Strasbourg is the official seat of the European Parliament

In Scotland, Biere d'Alsace is the budget beer of choice.

You can buy it in boxes of 24 short bottles for under a fiver.

In Strasbourg they brew the real thing.

Their dark beers are like treacle, their blonde light and refreshing but fuller and rounder than Scottish lager.

The Alsatian preference for beer over wine isn't the only sign of German culinary influence on Europe's other capital city.

For dessert, they serve apfel strudel. A local speciality, rosboef d'alsace, consists of beef. And nothing else.

"Strasbourg - la France et l'Allemagne" as one taxi driver put it.

Plenary session

Strasbourg represents all that people love and hate about the European Union.

Sitting right on the border, in a region that was once part of the German Empire, Strasbourg is a symbol of the reconciliation between France and Germany that has been at the heart of the European project since the war.

For many, though, it represents that other side of Europe - bureaucracy and waste.

Twelve times a year, European parliamentarians - many of them grudgingly - upsticks from their usual base in Brussels and travel to the parliament's official seat in Strasbourg.

On the Monday of the final plenary session before next month's elections, we arrived at the parliament building to find it empty.

Business doesn't kick off properly until 5pm and since very few airlines fly directly to Strasbourg members spend the first day travelling.

After literally getting lost in the Strasbourg bureaucracy for half an hour, we reach the office where we have to sort out our paper work.

The clerk whose job it is to deal with expenses, sits in a bare room with no sign of habitation.

There are no pictures on the wall, no plants or flowers, no photos of family on the desk.

Eighty percent of parliamentary staff, he tells us, work and live in Brussels for most of the year and resent having to come here.

The main debating chamber "looks like a great wooden bee-hive"

The European Parliament, I'm told, is the one legislature in the world that doesn't get to decide where it sits.

The main debating chamber - the hemicycle - looks like a great wooden bee-hive surrounded by the buzz of many languages.

Inuit in traditional costume are here to secure the right to catch seal in their hereditary hunting grounds.

An angry young Canadian sees my BBC pass and tells me that the EU's proposed ban is a big mistake based on mis-information in the media.

Decisions taken here do affect peoples lives, often far from Strasbourg.

After this week's parliamentary vote, sporran makers in Scotland will have to make sure that the seal fur they use comes from the right place.

Of course, there's another reason for the commotion this time.

The bars and cafes are full of gossip about the forthcoming elections.

Expense accounts

Those members who aren't standing down are hoping they can hold onto their seats.

Some wonder about how the balance of the parliament - between the large Socialist and centre-right People's Party groups - will be affected by the economic crisis.

For some, though, the biggest worry is turnout.

For all the complaints from home about free champagne and expense accounts, being an MEP, I'm told, is a pretty thankless task.

Gunner Hokmark, a Swedish conservative, says: "I tell people at home that the European Parliament is one of the two Swedish Parliaments - and that goes for every country in the Union. There are decisions that can't be taken in Stockholm or in Edinburgh, but have to be taken together".

The economic crisis is a case a point.

But, he adds: "People in Sweden often look on Europe as something extra-terrestrial".

Bernadette Vergnaud, a French socialist, agrees: "It's difficult to explain to voters the work that member's of the European Parliament do".

One problem is that European campaigns tend to be fought on national issues.

It has turned a provincial cathedral city, fought over for so long by France and Germany, into one of the centres of the new Europe

In France, it's the policies of Nicolas Sarkozy; in Britain, Gordon Brown and the state of the economy.

In Scotland, Labour and the SNP will be fighting over who is the largest party, while the Lib Dems and the Tories will fight to hold onto their seats as the number of Scottish MEPs goes from seven to six.

The issues of the day - from the economy to swine flu - don't have any respect for national borders.

So far the European institutions have had, at best, mixed success in persuading voters that these problems have European answers.

If the European Parliament ever did stop coming here, it would be a great loss to the Strasbourgeois.

Europe is big news here. It has turned a provincial cathedral city, fought over for so long by France and Germany, into one of the centres of the new Europe.

MEPs would miss the Hansel and Gretel architecture, the courtesy of the people, and, of course, the Biere d'Alsace.

But Strasbourg would miss them a great deal more.