EU lawmakers decry hotel prostitutes

STRASBOURG, France, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Some Scandinavian members of the European Union Parliament have complained that their hotels in Strasbourg, France, have been taken over by prostitutes.

The 37 Scandinavian lawmakers said in a petition to Parliament President Hans Gert Poettering that they want the hotels used by parliamentarians in Strasbourg, the seat of the EU parliament, to ban prostitution, Deutsch Welle reported Monday.

"It's not about making prostitution illegal," said Karin Riis Joergensen, a Danish member of the parliament and one of the sponsors of the petition. "We just don't want to live in hotels with prostitutes … If some of my colleagues want to party, they should do that … but not at the place where we live … We just want clean hotels."

However, some parliamentarians, including Manfred Ferber of Germany, said the prostitution problem has been blown out of proportion.

"In my 14 years in the Parliament, it's never occurred to me that this was an issue," he said. "I've never seen anything like it, especially not in the hotel where I've stayed the last 11 years."

Poettering said he will consider the issue carefully.

"I have to look into this because they submitted a letter," he said. "It's kind of unleashed a storm of sorts … The parliament's executive committee has asked a council of elders to investigate. We have to take this seriously but also avoid blowing it out of proportion."