Mr. Roland Freudenstein:

As for Commission size, I understand the concerns. My realistic prediction is we will not have a substantial change in this regard over the next couple of years. However, members should consider that it is not simply a question of how many Commissioners and how many black Mercedes cars or Peugeots or whatever they drive in Brussels. In addition, the collegiate principle of the Commission means each Commissioner has a vote when the Commission discusses, decides and votes. There is also a voting mechanism within the European Commission and as this greatly complicates the decision-making process, members should take that into consideration.

As to whether someone can survive and remain sane while being in a national parliament and involved in the European Parliament, yes of course. In fact, I believe we should have more back and forth between national parliaments and the European Parliament. Some member states are doing this very well, while others are terrible at it. Germany is terrible at this. There are very few cases of successful national parliamentarians going to Brussels and Strasbourg and even fewer cases of people coming back. There is one single case I know of in which a CDU ex-MEP became a national member of parliament, namely, Friedrich Merz. I think the Greens now also have one but it is a total exception and it should happen more, as there should be more exchange in this regard.

This brings me to the question on a single seat for the European Parliament asked by Ms Phil Prendergast, who was obliged to leave the meeting. There was a mean April fools' day joke this year in the European bubble. After the European Council meeting of late March, which ended on a Friday afternoon, a colleague of mine wrote a column - it is on the Carnegie Foundation's website - in which he referred to the ignominy of the Brussels decision to create a third seat for the European Parliament. What he did was to give a fictitious story of how, late on a Friday afternoon when all the press had already left, there was some horse-trading about the multi-annual financial framework and as part of this, Dresden was given the third seat. While I just loved this joke, at least I recognised it as such. However, the joke is that many people did not recognise this as a joke and reacted furiously on Facebook, writing things like this was another example of Brussels folly.