"costs" are insignificant if you are talking about productive members of the Parliament (just like they are insignificant for any revenue-generating executive), and they will ALWAYS be too high for those that are inefficient and effectively parasites of the system. Limiting them to economy class instead of business class or any per diam amount for food and lodging may limit the waste but does not eliminate the fact that any money spent on them is wasted.

Meanwhile, applying rules to all alienates everybody (including the productive members) and is ultimately counter-productive in my view.

As (in my view) a revenue generating executive, I regularly have fights over what can be considered legitimate expenses. As I do not use corporate credit cards or the like but spend my own money, I take the risk and spend when I feel it is justified, and then go to my management to get reimbursed even if it's against the rules. It works.

To me, the cost issue is a populist distraction.

(And yeah, I know it's easy to say that after spending 200 euros per persons in a restaurant, with plenty of fine food and alcohol, but it's still true. Most of these dinners are either absolute chores or well earned perks).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The European Parliament so far does things better, or differently. Why? because it was directly elected (and by proportional voting, or close)? because Members of European Parliament (MEPs) have not yet been subjected to lobbying as intensively? Because MEPs are in much bigger number than Commissioners? Because they are not in the Brussels political environment?
These questions came to mind. Not that they should be necessarily analysed either today or on this particular thread.

Some of them may see the single seat as a means of increasing the EP's efficiency. I also get the feeling (unfortunately -- see comments below) that the desire, for UK MEPs, to nip over to Brussels for a three-day week and be at home the rest of the time is fairly strong. It's not a question of laziness but of visibility. These are pols of a certain level who don't want to drop out of sight in their party or region/country. Being away on parliamentary business isn't good for this.

(A similar problem can be observed within a Member State of large surface area like France, where deputies try to reduce parliamentary work in Paris to the shortest week possible so they can be present in their sometimes distant constituencies.)

It's a complex question, because representatives who were away all the time would perhaps do better parliamentary work, but would contribute to the widespread perception of European institutions as remote and unconcerned with citizens' everyday life.

Overall, however, the anti-travelling circus issue is, I think, deliberately overblown by Eurosceptics and played on in the media, English-language in particular.

Towards a more Efficient, Transparent, and Accountable European Parliament

...

If elected Member of the European Parliament in June 2004, I pledge to work for

• Greater Efficiency by demanding an end to the European Parliament's three working places arrangement, and giving it a single seat - in Brussels
  
• Enhanced Transparency through reform of the system of expenses, including the  reimbursement of travel expenses only on the basis of costs actually incurred;
  
• Improved Accountability, through the introduction of a strengthened code of conduct setting out MEPs' rights and responsibilities, and through further reform of Parliament's Rules of Procedure.