How the EU is breaking its own Lisbon Treaty

That the European Union takes to the moral high ground on international law when it suits it is hardly new. Nor is its infringement of international treaties, even when they are its own. For six months now, the European Union has been in breach of its fundamental international treaty: the 2007 Lisbon Treaty.

Brussels has fallen foul of Article 341 and Protocol 6 – or what might be called the ‘Alsace-Lorraine protocol’ – of what is officially known as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This section of the treaty permanently situates the European Parliament’s plenary seat in the Alsatian capital of Strasbourg. But since March 2020, the European Union has moved the Parliament to Brussels against the wishes of France. Why is this important? Other than being a violation of an international treaty that can only be modified by member states unanimously, it is further evidence of the European Union riding roughshod over highly sensitive issues connected to Europe’s troubled history.