Posts Tagged MEPs

MEP second pension list published

Posted by Bruno Waterfield in European elections, Secrecy on April 17, 2009

At least 50 per cent of MEPs will get a publicly funded second pension when they retire.

In the British case, where it is 80 per cent of MEPs, the leaders of all the political parties, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Ukip are represented.

Fair enough, they are entitled to it and they must be worth it.

Hat tip to Open Europe for publishing the list (which is not exhaustive) – click here.

The European Ombudsman has repeatedly ruled that the names of the MEPs who benefit from the scheme should be published.

In April 2007, MEPs voted to keep secret the list of names of those who are benefitting from the fund.

Just to remind you how this scheme works.

Two thirds of this extra pension is paid for in supplementary payments by the taxpayer.

MEPs pay £1052(1,194 euros) a month into the scheme. That cash is added to with a publicly funded payment of £2104 (2388 euros).

But and it is a big BUT, at present the MEP’s contribution is automatically deducted from his or her office expenses – although, at last, this is about to change.

There are no checks to ensure that it is paid back.

But I am sure that all MEPs play by the rules.

No one would want wish to imply that any of our representatives to the European Parliament play fast and loose with any allowances or benefits.

MEPs, on reaching retirement age and leaving the parliament, can expect an extra pension benefit, on top the same national scheme for Westminster MPs, worth an annual £14,736 for every five year term of office.

An MEP, like the former Conservative Den Dover, who benefits from the perk can net a combined pension of around £35,000 after just 10 years in office.

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Crisis? What crisis for MEPs?

Posted by Bruno Waterfield in Economic crisis, European elections on April 16, 2009

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”.

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More hypocrisy in the European Parliament

Posted by Bruno Waterfield in European elections, Secrecy on March 11, 2009

Euro-MPs have commendably voted for new rules making it easier to get legislation related European Union documents into public view.

But, inevitably, sadly, predictably and hypocritically the same MEPs have decided that the same openness should not apply to how they spend their expenses.

This is a great pity as the proposals, drafted by Michael Cashman, are a major improvement on the current secrecy status quo.

The hypocrisy – to make sure Euro-MP expense accounting is exempt – is already being used by opponents of greater access to documents, especially the European Commission to discredit openness.

It was the EPP – that’s the European Parliament’s largest centre right grouping, including the Tories – that tabled the amendments to ensure that MEPs’ financial accounting could remain top secret.

The PES – the second largest, Socialist, grouping, including Labour – agreed, partly as a trade off to preserve the proposals. The Liberals in Alde voted against, to their credit.

Tory and Labour Euro-MPs decided that their expenses would remain exempt from public interest requests under existing rights and privileges contained in the “Members’ Statute”.

Article Six of this EU legislation states “(1) Members shall be entitled to inspect any files held by Parliament. (2) Paragraph 1 shall not apply to personal files and accounts.”

This is the catch all privilege that is currently used to hush up wrong doing by MEPs by preventing any scrutiny of how they spend their allowances.

Here is the amendment, number 115, from Hartmut Nassauer on behalf of the EPP:

“The definition of an overriding public interest in disclosure shall take due account of the protection of the political activity and independence of Members of the European Parliament, in particular with regard to Article 6(2) of the Members’ Statute.”

“Justification. With a view to protect the political activity and the independence of members, the Members’ Statute provides that personal files and accounts of a Member of the European Parliament are not accessible by other Members of the European Parliament. As the Members’ Statute is directly applicable Community law, other legal acts must respect its provisions and cannot allow circumventions. Therefore it seems appropriate to include the specific nature of these documents in the definition of an overriding interest.”

This amendment means that accounts or financial disciplinary measures, such as demands for MEPs to pay back money back, will not be counted as documents even though such information would be on the basis of the parliament’s rules and procedures.

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Oh what a turn off

Posted by Bruno Waterfield in Brussels life, Democracy, EU, European elections on February 17, 2009

It costs £53,000 for every hour broadcast but under 160,000 people have watched it since broadcasting began in mid-September. Over 60,000 of those were in the first week.

This means that this lavishly funded European Union channel attracts less than 1200 viewers every day, from an audience of over 400 million.

It is, of course, the European Parliament’s EuroparlTV. That’s the web-TV service that will cost over £32 million over four years, over £9,000 worth of vanity programmes for each and every MEP.

The viewing figures (hat tip to Julien Frisch) are impossible to verify and have to be based on whispers or hints from various parliament sources because no official figures are being released.

I asked one parliament official if he could tell me the viewing figure. “No. We are not interested in the figures,” came his reply. Yes, things are that bad.

Read more.

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