ABSTRACT
The MEPs were divided between having profound roots in Portugal and a necessity to enroot themselves in new European cities, such as Brussels and Strasbourg. Finding a balance between the two underpinned their mobility. The macro, annual schedules prescribed by the European Parliament forced the MEPs to constantly juggle between Brussels, Strasbourg and other global cities that requested their presence. This meant going at least once per month to the Europarl in Strasbourg and seven times per year to one of the green-weeks’ locations (often foreign to the EU). How did they manage to do so? What were the strategies? They had to become fast and agile, to insert themselves in a transnational culture of speed and smoothness. They had to redesign themselves as figures of speed. This incorporation entailed many and different dimensions. Highlights included naturalising high-speed travelling, creating routines within these modes of moving, manipulating and eliminating turbulence, enfolding themselves in certain nodes that enabled further swiftness, and finally transporting their professional acquaintances onto their personal lives. All of these dimensions prompted a fast, non-turbulent and sliding mobile lifestyle. Ultimately, this lifestyle led to identification with Europe and Europeanness. To a particular aesthetics and “prosthetics” (Cresswell 2009) of European citizenship.
