With travel chaos spreading across Europe, many Members of the European Parliament have been unable to make their way to the monthly plenary session in Strasbourg today.
As such, there have been calls from MEPs from various far-flung parts of Europe to cancel votes this week.
According to the Treaties, however, the session must proceed with or without stranded MEPs - a decision which has frayed tempers.
Ever the dedicated Europeans, a German MEP chose to respond to the tales of travel chaos which have been shared across the Parliamentary e-mail system by his stranded colleagues with a few "helpful" observations:
"If all those who participated in this MEP chat room thus far invested the same amount of creativity in getting home at the end of last week as getting back to Parliament this week, we would find almost as many colleagues as usual in Strasbourg"
The MEP went on to outline a selection of possible travel routes from various European countries, before asking:
"Would a train ride be considered too much an effort to take in order to assume the function that one is elected for?"
An old hand from Luxembourg added:
"Millions of people all over Europe try and succeed at coping with the present exceptional circumstances. I therefore believe that, what would actually seem "a bit absurd" would be that less than eight hundred MEPs could not"
The Italians took exception:
"No matter how hard you try to be witty, we are not in the mood. From Roma all the trains are already booked until April 23rd. So, before doing travel agent for everybody, update your information!"
The Finns were were furious:
"How do you think that we come from Finland? All the ferries are already fully booked and there are no straight trains or buses from there. You can take a bus but it takes for two to three days (depending if you can get a ferry from Finland to Sweden) from Finland to Strasbourg or to Brussels"
A sarcastic Portuguese Member added:
"It appears that this unfortunate natural event has shown that some of our colleagues may not be aware of the true geography of Europe"
Hardly the entente cordiale is it?
Across the course of the day, calls to cancel the week’s Parliamentary business have grown.
Calling for decisive action to postpone the sitting, a Romanian MEP was at least philosophical and kept the situation in perspective:
"Ca s'apelle force majeur and leadership means to take responsibility for tough decisions in such times".
With the exception of perfidious Liberal Democrat MEP Edward MacMillan-Scott who has declared he "shall not attend", British MEPs of all parties have managed to make their way to Strasbourg.
