MEPs cost taxpayers five times more than UK MPs
04 June 2009
Amid the ongoing ‘expenses scandal’, and in response to claims by EU officials that MEPs are entitled to the same amount in allowances as MPs in Westminster, Open Europe has today published a comparison between the cost of the European Parliament and the cost of the UK Parliament.
Open Europe’s comparison finds that the European Parliament costs taxpayers a staggering £1.8 million for each MEP per year. This is in contrast to the House of Commons, which costs taxpayers £364,000 for each member per year, and the House of Lords, which costs £208,000 per member per year.
In a recent article for the Guardian newspaper, Dermot Scott, Head of the European Parliament’s UK Office, claimed that an MEP’s allowances are “comparable to an MP's allowance” and accused British media reports of being “inaccurate or tendentious.”
However, Open Europe’s comparison, based on the respective parliaments’ budget allocations, finds that while national MPs at Westminster on average claim up to £148,297 in allowances each year, their counterparts in Brussels claim up to £363,000 per year. Furthermore, MEPs do not have to produce receipts to claim their allowances, in contrast with national MPs.
The European Parliament’s UK office also misleadingly claims that “[MEPs’] Pension rights are the same as for a Westminster MP” . In fact, under the new rules coming into force following the European elections, MEPs will be entitled to a far more generous pension scheme than MPs.
If MPs contribute the standard 10% of their salary to their pension over a ten year period (a whole year’s salary of £63,291), they will have access to a pension of £15,822 per year. By contrast, under new rules to come into force after the elections, MEPs will receive an annual pension of £27,954, after paying in nothing at all from their own salaries over the same ten year period.
Open Europe’s Mats Persson said:
“There has been a lot of fuss about MPs’ expenses in the last few weeks – and rightly so. But taxpayers will be shocked to hear that Members of the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg cost us five times as much as MPs do. Not only that, but they have access to more than double the amount of expenses, without having to produce a single receipt.”
“The European Parliament has introduced some reforms to come into force after tomorrow. However, under the new rules, UK MEPs will get a huge payrise, and while receipts will for the first time have to be produced for travel expenses, the vast majority of expenses will continue to be available without a receipt. On top of that, the pension becomes even more generous than before – dwarfing the pension that national MPs are entitled to.”
European Parliament spending at a glance:
• The European Parliament, along with the European Commission, is the world’s largest employer of translators and interpreters, employing around 1,500 people. In contrast, the UN employs around 613 interpreters and translators. Interpretation services for the European Parliament alone cost taxpayers €21.6 million every year.
• The European Parliament will spend €5.8 million this year and €6.8 million next year on various transport services, which include a chauffeur service for MEPs and a limo service for each political group leader.
• Since May 2008, UK MEPs have spent over £120,000 and flown almost 400,000 miles on foreign trips and ’fact finding’ missions to exotic locations such as Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. Glenys Kinnock is the most widely travelled UK MEP, travelling over 60,000 miles on trips costing over £20,000 in just one year.
• The European Parliament’s €9 million-a-year Europarl TV channel was launched in September 2008. The European Parliament had justified the investment in the channel based on the prediction that it would attract 20-40 million viewers annually. However, according to German newspaper Die Welt, during the first five months only 120,000 viewers had visited the site.
• The technology website, Heise Online, has calculated that the channel costs €60,000 for every hour of broadcast. Even the European Parliament’s report on the 2010 draft budget stated that it “would welcome some further information on 'the return' for this investment.”
• The European Parliament has hired a PR agency, Scholz & Friends European Agenda, to help boost turnout in the European elections, at a cost of €18 million. They explained: “Interactive multimedia boxes invite the EU citizens to cast their personal wishes for Europe as a video message. Together with ten billboard motives, the 3D installations and the multimedia boxes show that Europeans have a choice and the chance to participate in the EU's decision making – emphasised by the claim ‘It's your choice!”
• The monthly commute of the European Parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg costs taxpayers an estimated €203 million per year (in 2007 prices) and generates around 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
• The European Parliament and Commission offices in London spent £24 million purchasing the Conservative Party’s former headquarters, which will host fewer than 72 staff across its eight floors, and will see renovations costing £5.2 million.
• There are reports that the European Parliament plans to build a €5 million 'aqua gym' complex which would include a 'green' sauna, powered exclusively through solar energy (but which may only reach a temperature of 14 degrees). Other facilities will include steam baths and a pool. In addition, the plans foresee the instalment of exercise bikes and treadmills which would be connected to the European Parliament's power grid to generate electricity and, according to one source, would beam "pro-Europe messages from a beacon in Place Luxembourg”. The plans have come under criticism as MEPs already have access to a perfectly functioning gym.
• The European Parliament’s Visitors’ Centre was due to be open for the 2009 European elections, but no one seems to know when it actually will open – not even the existing visitors centre. Costs for the centre have topped €15 million so far: €4.7 million in 2008; €3.9 million in 2009; and €6 million in 2010. The centrepiece of the building will be an interactive feature that will allow the public to simulate the work of an MEP.
• The European Parliament spends €1.1 million a year on “entertainment and representation”. According to the EP’s 2009 budget report, this money goes towards “the President’s travel and secretarial expenses, the purchase of items and medals for officials who have completed 15 or 25 years’ service” and “miscellaneous protocol expenditure, such as on flags, display stands, invitation cards, printed menus.”
• Up to 60 MEPs regularly sign in as present for the monthly European Parliament session in Strasbourg on Fridays, even though the Parliament does not convene on Fridays, receiving the so-called ’Sign in and sod off’ €298 daily allowance. This so-called ‘Friday reimbursement’ has cost the European Parliament at least €820,000 since 2004.
COMPARISONS UK PARLIAMENT AND EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Comparison 1: Expenses and allowances
UK MPs Travel £9,598 Communications allowance £7,276 Additional costs allowance £17,957 Incidental expenses provision £17,802 Other £9,752 Staff allowance £85,913
Total per MP: £148,297
MEPs 'Subsistence allowances' £36,778 Language and IT courses £5,885 Travel expenses £87,407
’Additional annual travel allowance' £3,756 Staff allowances £183,776 Office expenses (£3,804 a month) £45,648
Total per MEP: £363,000
Under new rules coming into force after the European elections, MEPs’ staff allowances will be administered by the European Parliament itself, but the total pot of available allowances will stay roughly the same.
Comparison 2: Pensions
UK MPs MPs have a choice between an accrual rate of 1/40th or 1/50th of their salary. It is a contributory pension with the contribution rate now set at 10% (40th accrual) or 6% (50th accrual) of salary.
Current salary = £63,291
Over ten years, for an MP to receive an annual pension of £15,822 they must contribute £63,291(100% salary) to the scheme.
Alternatively, they can contribute £37,974 over ten years (60% of salary) and receive an annual pension of £12,658.
MEPs Up until June 2009, MEPs received the same pensions as MPs. However, under the new rules MEPs will be entitled to an accrual rate of 3.5% with no contribution from their salary. New salary = €91,980 (£79,869)
So, over a ten year term, MEPs will receive an annual pension of €32,193 or £27,954 by paying in £0.
In addition to this standard pension, existing Members of the European Parliament who are re-elected will be able to continue paying into the very controversial second pension scheme, which will be closed to new members. The second pension scheme – into which taxpayers contribute £2 for every £1 an MEP pays in – gives MEPs access to a £209,000 pension fund after a single five year term, which they can begin drawing on when they reach the age of 63.
Comparison 3: Salaries
MPs’ salaries The total House of Commons budget in 2007-8 for salaries of Members was £44.51 million. Divided by 646 MPs this equals £68,901 per MP.
MEPs’ salaries From July 2009, instead of MEPs receiving the same salary as national MPs, as is currently the case, MEPs will all be paid the same salary directly from the EU budget, amounting to 38.5% of that of an ECJ judge.
2010 is the first full year in which MEPs will receive their new salaries. The total 2010 budget for MEPs’ salaries is €69.7 million . Divided by 736 MEPs (the number of MEPs that will be elected under the Nice Treaty) this equals €94,762 or £81,745 per MEP.
Comparison 4: Total cost
Total cost European Parliament £1,300 million House of Commons £363.9 million House of Lords £153.5 million
Cost per Member European Parliament (736 members) £1,800,000 House of Commons (646 members) £563,000 House of Lords (724 members) £212,000
Notes to Editors
1) For more information, please contact Mats Persson on 0207 197 2333 or 0044 7799 460691 or Lorraine Mullally on 0044 7817 027911.
2) Open Europe is an independent think-tank calling for reform of the European Union. Its supporters include: Sir Stuart Rose, Executive Chairman, Marks and Spencer plc; Sir Crispin Davis, Former Chief Executive, Reed Elsevier Group plc; Sir David Lees, Chairman, Tate and Lyle plc; Henry Keswick, Chairman, Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd; Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover KG, Life President, J Sainsbury plc; Sir John Egan, Chairman, Severn Trent plc and Lord Kalms of Edgware, President, DSG International plc.
For a full list, please click here: http://www.openeurope.org.uk/about-us/supporters.aspx