MEP EXPENSES:ONE OF MEPs' key functions is to be a watchdog on EU spending, but when it comes to revealing their own expenses they still fail the transparency test.
Unlike in Britain or Ireland where TDs’ and MPs’ expenses are subject to scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act, the European Parliament refuses to publish how much and what MEPs spend their allowances on.
Following a complaint from a Maltese journalist, the EU Ombudsman – the official charged with safeguarding citizens’ rights when they engage with EU institutions – last year asked the bureau of the parliament to publish details of MEPs’ expenses claims.
But the bureau, which is composed of senior MEPs, refused, citing the right to “privacy” for all parliamentarians.
The request for full transparency was given a boost last year following revelations contained in a secret internal audit report detailing widespread abuses of the expenses system by MEPs.
British MEP Chris Davies, who sits on the parliament’s budget control committee, turned whistleblower, telling journalists about millions of euro of abuses of the lucrative expenses system.
The auditors discovered some MEPs were paid for non-existent staff, had not made social security payments to staff, and in one case paid a staff member a Christmas bonus worth 19 times their monthly salary.
One of the key problems identified in the report is that up until now parliamentarians could set up their own service provider firms to pay their assistants in Brussels and their home country without any scrutiny over what they spent the money on.
The assistance allowance is worth €17,540 per month or €210,480 per year, which MEPs are allowed to administer through their own firms. Last year the British MEP Den Dover was expelled from the Tory party when it was discovered he paid €750,000 to his wife and daughter for work undertaken over a nine- year period. He has subsequently been ordered to pay back €500,000 in expenses by the parliamentary authorities.
Following the huge controversy generated by the leaked audit report and the Den Dover case, the bureau of the parliament in December introduced a new assistants’ statute, which will mean that all working contracts and financial payments of assistants will be handled by the parliament’s financial services administration body rather than an MEP’s own company from July on.
The new statute also prevents MEPs from hiring family members as assistants.
The parliament is also introducing a members’ statute following this June’s elections, which will replace the current flat rate travel allowance covering MEPs flights to Brussels or Strasbourg from their home country with a reimbursement linked to the expenses actually incurred.
This will prevent MEPs from buying a cheap low-cost ticket but claiming up to the value of the €1,300 allowance covering return flights to and from the parliament.
In the next parliament all MEPs will have to provide receipts for all travel, although they will continue to receive flat rate subsistence and general expenditure allowances and will not have to provide receipts for claims.
Under the current salary system MEPs get the same as national parliamentarians, so Irish MEPs receive a TD’s salary of about €100,000, while Lithuanian MEPs receive a salary worth €14,197.20 and Italians get a whopping €140,436.
But under the new members’ statute any newly-elected MEP will get a standard gross salary worth €92,000 unless a state applies for a special derogation to keep the current salary system.
This salary will be subject to an EU tax rate, which would bring an MEPs net pay down to €71,559. Member states can also levy taxes on MEP’s, but only if they ensure it does not subject the member to double taxation.
But existing MEPs will be able to apply for a derogation that enables them to keep their current national salary system and parliament pension scheme rather than come under the new scheme outlined in the members’ statute.
Proponents of the new members’ statute and assistants’ statute claim it will banish the “gravy train” slur that has haunted the parliament for years. But opponents say it does not go far enough and there are enough loopholes to allow abuses to continue. Despite continuing criticism from the EU Ombudsman, it is highly unlikely MEPs will vote to come under the same scrutiny that the expenses of their national counterparts receive in Britain or Ireland.