MEP seeks medical treatment after poor hygiene at Strasbourg hotel

Complaints from European Union lawmakers about the monthly journey to Strasbourg for plenary sessions are common, but one recent incident escalated beyond inconvenience after a member of the European Parliament (MEP) required medical attention following a hotel stay.

According to minutes from an internal administrative body meeting held on April 29, an unidentified lawmaker sought assistance after “a case of poor hygiene … in a hotel during an official mission.” The conditions at the hotel “led the affected member to seek treatment from the Parliament’s Medical Service,” the notes state.

The issue was raised during the meeting by Socialist lawmaker Marc Angel of Luxembourg, who sits on the administrative body. Angel declined to disclose the identity of the MEP involved or the name and location of the hotel, but told POLITICO he cited the case to highlight “the need to establish a procedure for handling hygiene-related issues that may arise during official missions involving Members or colleagues.”

Such a procedure, he said, would allow complaints about hygiene standards to be rapidly reported to the European Parliament’s travel agency and could result in problematic hotels being removed from the list of accommodation options available to lawmakers.

Two people familiar with the matter said the hotel in question was located in Strasbourg, the French city where lawmakers, assistants, officials, lobbyists and journalists gather each month for plenary sessions. One of the sources added that the hotel was not among those recommended by the Parliament’s travel agency. Both spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the incident.

The episode adds to longstanding concerns surrounding accommodation in Strasbourg, which has previously been linked to health issues affecting Parliament members. In 2021, then-European Parliament President David Sassoli was hospitalised with pneumonia after contracting Legionnaires’ disease around the time of a stay in a Strasbourg hotel. Sassoli died in January the following year.

The incident also underscores broader criticism of the European Parliament’s monthly relocation between Brussels and Strasbourg, an arrangement mandated by EU treaties. Lawmakers have for years argued that the system is costly, inefficient and environmentally unsustainable. 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,” a Parliament spokesperson said, speaking anonymously in line with institutional 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,” the spokesperson added.

By Tamilla Hasanova