It appears that MEPs are going to brave political unpopularity to bailout their second pensions.
The European Parliament’s powerful and secretive “bureau” has been struggling to plug a £106 million black hole in the fund that pays out a second pension perk to MEPs.
This generous pension perk is already two thirds funded by the taxpayer and predictably the public purse will “almost certainly” be raided to make up fund losses caused by the financial crash and dodgy investments.
The identities of the 478 MEPs who get the publicly funded second pension contributions worth over £12 million a year is a closely guarded secret – read more here.
That benefit bill – on top of national pensions, which are for British MEPs the same as Westminster MPs – could now rise by up to GBP10.6 million a year to meet the shortfall.
Up to half the losses are said to stem form investments, via a Luxembourg fund, in schemes linked to the disgraced American financier Bernard Madoff.
This story has been rumbling around for some weeks now. Several officials I have spoken to in this period have denied both the losses and the likelihood of a pension bailout.
A leaked note from the bureau (the body that runs the EU’s assembly’s administration), dated April 3, makes it clear that “parliament will assume its legal responsibility to guarantee the right of members of the Voluntary Pension Scheme to the additional pension”.
#1 by zeleneye on April 16, 2009 - 4:01 pm
Well Bruno, it might interest you to know the MEPs are voting on the discharge of the EP (and other) accounts next week. Included are amendments aimed at making the list of those covered by this supplementary pension scheme public and ensuring that no (more) public funds are used to dig out the scheme. How about reporting on that and how the UK MEPs vote? How about reporting on MEPs who are working to reform the EU’s excesses rather than always taking the simplistic, broad strokes route.
On the drinking coffee in Brussels note (from yesterday) – coffee in Brussels is appalling. The Belgians even have a term for their own coffee: cafe chaussette (sock coffeee), which basically implies the coffee looks (and tastes) like the liquid wrung out from a wet sock.
#2 by Bruno Waterfield on April 17, 2009 - 4:21 pm
Yes, para 31 I think. I have already covered the vote next week. I would have nothing to report if it was not for some excellent reform minded MEPs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/5163101/Taxpayers-to-plug-100m-hole-in-MEP-pension-fund-created-by-financial-crisis-and-fraud.html
On coffee: the EU institutions are better, especially in the Commission press bar where Nelson’s Grand Illy is very good. I make my own using a Gaggia and Lavazza Crema E Gusto
#3 by Andrew Rettman on April 17, 2009 - 9:23 pm
The coffee in the Coffee House opposite Gare de Lux is very good. Nice bagels and wi-fi as well. At home it’s one of those angular metal Italian pods that you just plonk on the hob. Wickedly strong and makes your gums tingle. But my Neapolitan friend, using the same gadget somehow makes it tastier and stronger still. Strong coffee and tobacco. Are there any better companions for a writer?