MEPs award themselves €1,500 more in staff expenses

As European citizens come to terms with the array of austerity measures being doled out across the union at the insistence of EU and international lenders, MEPs have agreed to increase the money they use for expenses.

Voting in Strasbourg on Wednesday (19 May), the euro deputies argued the extra money was needed to help them cope with the additional work created under the Lisbon Treaty, the EU's new rulebook which came into force on 1 December 2009.

In approving the report by Sl...