European Parliament, the “phantom” mini plenary

Scheduled on the calendar, then they disappear from the weekly agenda

Because is it no longer in Brussels, at the moment, an Hemicycle available

Look at the work schedule and then compare it to the agenda: something is not right. In theory there should be activity from next Monday to Thursday in the European Parliament, at least according to the revised institutional calendar in January. But the weekly agenda actually shows limited activity only on Monday and Tuesday, a very strange fact for external observers yet not at all surprising for the working representatives. The Brussels’ Hemicycle next week (Wednesday and Thursday) should host the mini plenary session (the regular plenary session- which is the same is the monthly one in Strasbourg) but there is no room available. The Hemicycle area is unusable because of work in progress to restore the ceiling to safety caused by structural damage and therefore sessions were skipped. Not bad, given that it turns out that is happens to be Easter. Someone could object: why not move it to Strasbourg? To break a complex program for 2 days probably would not be worth it, and anyway the French seat also has its problems, that many (everyone except the French) would like to see it closed, and therefore certainly doesn’t want to give the satisfaction of becoming “useless” in this emergency.