MEP perks on foreign ministers' agenda
By Honor Mahony
Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels today and tomorrow will take time out from discussing controversial international issues to discuss controversial issues closer to home: MEPs' pay and funding of pan-European political parties.
The issue of MEPs' pay has seen European Parliament and member states at loggerheads with one another for several months.
Join EUobserver today
Get the EU news that really matters
Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.
Choose your plan
... or subscribe as a group
Already a member?
The reform of the statute, pushed by member states, would see the system behind salaries for MEPs made much more transparent.
At the moment, Euro-parliamentarians are paid according to their national systems which means there are huge discrepancies between salaries - Germans and Italians are at the top of the payment heap, their Spanish colleagues at the bottom.
If the new proposals are adopted, it would mean a huge pay rise for some; Spanish MEPs would receive 5,700 euro more per month.
Taxing issues
Under the proposed reforms, the way MEPs allocate travel expenses and what and how they may claim will also be changed. At the moment the system is extremely opaque, leading to many national newspapers to speak of the 'Brussels gravy train'.
The question of tax is also a thorny one. MEPs voted recently that they should pay tax to the European Communities and not into their national tax systems. This is strongly opposed by countries such as the UK, Denmark and Sweden – they fear the political fallout of MEPs paying less tax than their constituents.
The clock is ticking on this whole statute issue – the Parliament is under pressure to strike a deal with the Council before next year's election and EU enlargement.
The discrepancies between current member state MEPs and those from the accession countries are even greater. A Czech politician elected as a member of the European Parliament in the June 2004 elections would only be paid a salary of 400 euro per month, the same as MPs in the Prague parliament according to the existing rules. Italian MEPs, by contrast, receive close to 12,000 euro per month.
Pan-European party funding
Another issue up for discussion is pan-European party funding. From July next year, 8.4 million euro will be made available from the Community budget for pan-European parties.
In order to qualify for the money, parties have to be represented in at least a quarter of the member states of the European Union.
Otherwise, the party must have obtained at least three per cent of the votes cast in the most recent European elections in each of at least four member states, the proposed regulation says.
IGC to be formally announced
Other issues closer to home include the forth-coming intergovernmental conference (IGC) to discuss and finalise the draft EU constitution.
Foreign ministers are today set to formally convene the IGC. This is just a formality - as the IGC, it has been generally agreed, will open on 4 October - and follows the handing over the opinions on the IGC by the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.