EU chiefs' £1million pay-off
Jamie Lyons News of the World - 22 March 2009
Golden goodbyes after as little as a year in top jobs
EU fat-cat beauraucrats will pick up £1 million golden parachutes to cushion the blow when they quit Brussels this year.
With 20 of Europe’s molly-coddled 27 Commissioners set to stand down in November, the total payoff pot will hit an astonishing £23.8 million.
Even after just one year in the job, British Commissioner Baroness Ashton would pocket a lottery-win size package worth £¼ million, plus £8,000-a-year pension, if called back to London.
Last night Lorraine Mullally of Open Europe—a think tank urging EU reform—fumed: “While taxpayers struggle in the recession and worry about losing jobs, their money is going to pamper grossly overpaid eurocrats with eye-watering salaries.
"It’s outrageous this team of unelected Brussels civil servants walk away with these vast sums. This is totally unjustified.”
The leavers’ massive payout includes HALF their six-figure salaries for three years AFTER standing down.
PLUS a resettlement allowance of up to £21,000 to help adjust to life after Brussels. PLUS huge pension pots worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Two vice-presidents of the Commission—Margot Wallström and Gunter Verheugen—do particularly well. They are in line for pension funds of £1,787,950.
And all the eurocrats have enjoyed a cushy job with perks that would make even disgraced bankers blush—£572 monthly entertainment allowance, cut-rate income tax, removal expenses and even fancy health benefits like acupuncture and mud baths.
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