The recent corruption scandal in the European Parliament and the subsequent arrests and charges brought by the Belgian justice against European officials have brought the issue of MPs’ salaries to the fore again. How much do they charge? What are the privileges that European institutions secure for them?
The recent corruption scandal in the European Parliament and the subsequent arrests and charges brought by the Belgian justice against current and former European officials have brought the issue of the salaries of European representatives to the fore once again.
All citizens of the bloc can view the salaries of their deputies through the parliament’s website itself.
On a general average, deputies receive a monthly salary of 9,400 euros, which becomes about 7,300 after taxes are deducted. Each government then imposes other secondary taxes on payroll, but it varies from state to state.
But in addition to salaries, there are a series of privileges that deputies enjoy, such as paying travel expenses to attend sessions in Brussels or French Strasbourg. Members of the European Parliament are compensated for activities outside their country up to a maximum of around 4,700 euros per annum.
The daily allowance for subsistence costs for each day a deputy spends in Brussels or Strasbourg for official activity is 338 euros. The allowance for office costs – rent, computers, phones and other supplies – is around 4,800 euros.
At the end of their terms, MEPs will receive a transitional allowance equivalent to one month’s salary for each year of service, for a maximum of two years.
Members of the European Parliament are eligible for a pension at age 63, which is equal to 3.5 percent of salary for each full year of service and is guaranteed by the European budget.
MEPs have just under €27,000 a month at their disposal to hire assistants. However, this amount is not paid directly to members of the European Parliament, but rather the administration of the Parliament.
At the end of last year, a scandal was raised called the Qatar scandal (Qatargate), in which several parliamentarians were implicated, most notably Vice President Roberta Metsola, a Greek socialist deputy named Eva Kaili.
And Kylie was stripped of her position in a quick and rare measure.
In late December, the Belgian judiciary decided to keep Caylee and her companion, the Italian parliamentary assistant Francesco Georgi, in detention for an additional month. It also decided to keep the director of a non-governmental organization and former member of the European Parliament, the Italian Socialist Pier Antonio Panzeri, in pretrial detention, pending the progress of investigations. Where suspicions of corruption hover around them.
These four were charged with “belonging to a criminal organization”, “money laundering” and “corruption”, in a scandal that shocked the European Parliament and caused tensions between Qatar and the European Union.
The police found hundreds of thousands of euros in several apartments owned by the suspects in Brussels, and security forces moved nationwide and made several arrests.
Qatar has repeatedly denied any involvement in the case.
