The spendthrift European Parliament

According to the news magazine Focus millions of euros have been spent on controversial construction and advertising projects for the European parliament in Strasbourg: "The Parliament buildings in Strasbourg for example, in which the MEPs come together twelve times a year to vote on laws for around three days, cost 200 million euros a year. ... At the end of 2007 it was revealed that two adjoining buildings bought for 143 million euros are contaminated with asbestos. ... The agency Scholz & Friends received 26 million euros, for which sum the German advertisers are to increase the popularity of the European Parliament in the coming years. This is also the goal of a new 23-million-euro Europahaus that will go up in Vienna's posh 1st district by the end of 2008. ... As MEP Alexander Alvaro (FDP) puts it: 'We're simply spending too much money.'"

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