Nordic Hotel Nutters

A group of mostly left-leaning Nordic MEPs have in a letter urged the European Parliament to only patronise Strasbourg hotels that pledge not to tolerate use of prostitutes, with one French NGO swiftly welcoming the symbolic gesture.

[We] strongly propose that the EU parliament without delay follow the Nordic Council and decide that the EU parliament only use hotels that issue a guarantee that the hotel is not involved in the sex trade, and that all staff have written guidelines on this issue, the letter, addressed to parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering and signed by 37 MEPs, says.

The Danish, Swedish and Finnish deputies mostly come from the Socialist, Liberal and Green factions in the parliament and include former Danish Prime Minister and the current president of the European Party of Socialists, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. Two conservative MEPs, Sweden's Charlotte Cederschiold and Finnish deputy Eija-Riitta Korhola, also joined the initiative.

The Copenhagen-based Nordic Council was founded in 1952 as a forum for Nordic parliamentary co-operation. It adopted the measure on prostitution and hotels in 2006.

Prostitution is legal in Denmark and Finland. It is also legal to sell sex in Sweden but against the law to buy it.

There is plenty of anecdotal material that some well-paid European Parliament workers and MEPs, away from their partners for the week, pay for sex during the monthly plenary session in Strasbourg. But evidence is scarce.

Hotels deny they would ever help a guest find a prostitute, while some smaller guest-houses exclude prostitutes who normally live with them in order not to put off EU clientele during the plenary sessions. But the manager of one large Strasbourg hotel told EUobserver: If a guest brought back somebody, they would be very discreet.

The Strasbourg office of French anti-sex trade NGO Mouvement du Nid said the European Parliament has no impact on levels of street prostitution: The parliamentarians are not interested in street prostitutes. They prefer escort girls, call girls of a slightly higher level. They find little adverts and make telephone calls. That's how they take care of business, the NGO's Isabelle Collot said.

A new morality restriction being put up for proposal by the European Parliament would forbid any MEP from staying at a hotel that maintains contacts with prostitutes.

The Sex Workers Interest Organisation (SIO) in Denmark has condemned the move by the EU, saying that it stigmatizes prostitutes.

The SIO has called on all European sex workers to boycott any politician who supports the policy at next year's European Parliament elections.

One sex worker named Sue told Politiken: The hotels are where we work. We can't do it in backyards or in cars. The proposal will force many out into the streets.

Soren Sondergaard of the People's Movement Against the EU defended his position by saying that his proposal is neither for nor against prostitution...BUT...that he is primarily concerned about protecting the women. If you're just a little bit internationally founded and don't just sit around fiddling with your navel, you'd know that lots of women are kept as slaves and have no free choice in what they do. If the Sex Workers Organisation can't see that, they're a really bad union, Politiken quoted the left-wing Sondergaard as saying.