A flat salary for all MEPs and travel expenses reimbursed on real costs: these are the two key features of the new members’ regulations that will apply from July. The measures are democratic for sure. But there is one snag: re-elected MEPs may choose not to apply the new parliamentary salary rules.

According to Article 190 of the Treaty, “the European Parliament, after seeking an opinion from the Commission and with the approval of the Council acting by a qualified majority, shall lay down the regulations and general conditions governing the performance of the duties of its members”. After almost ten years of negotiations, new regulations were adopted in September 2005. They will enter into force just after the elections. The main innovation concerns parliamentary pay.

Until now, MEPs were paid by their assembly or government, based on the salary of national parliamentarians. This resulted in huge disparities: a Bulgarian earns around €9,000 a year, while an Italian takes home €134,000. The new statute ends this inequality and provides for an across-the-board pre-tax monthly salary of €7,412.69 for everyone (€5.607.24 net). This is the equivalent of 38.5% of the basic salary of a judge at the EU Court of Justice. Financing these salaries will be covered by the EU budget and no longer by national exchequers.

EXEMPTIONS

The second important change covers the system for reimbursing travel expenses “to and from the place of work and other missions”. This will now be based on real costs, with supporting receipts, and no longer on fixed amounts that were more or less the cost of a first-class airfare. This should end the possibility of buying second-class tickets and pocketing the difference compared with the fixed allowance.

Both initiatives should ensure more equal treatment and transparency. But the new regulations include an exception clause. Sitting members re-elected in June will be able, by virtue of an “irreversible individual choice,” to opt for their national system on parliamentary pay. They must inform the European Parliament president of their decision in writing within 30 days of the regulation’s coming into force. This decision will be “definitive and irrevocable”. “This could be the case for Italian MEPs worried about seeing their salary almost cut in half in 2009,” said one parliamentarian.

A member state can also ask that its MEPs, elected in June 2009, are not included in the regulations for the section on the new parliamentary pay regulations, but this exemption is limited to two parliamentary terms. “This could be the case for some new member states fearing that their representatives will quickly gain a salary significantly higher than the national average. But the new regulations have also been done for them,” the MEP continued. However, the Parliament’s secretary-general, it is understood, has already received many letters from member states saying they wish to apply the new regulations from July.

REIMBURSEMENTS

The new regulations allow for ‘primary sickness cover’ for MEPs, ensuring that their dependents are reimbursed two-thirds of any health care costs, in accordance with privileges similar to those applying to judges and European commissioners. Retirement age is set at 63 and the European Parliament will be responsible for pensions. MEPs are subject to the Community tax system, not national ones. This reform should cost the parliament €100 million a year.

All MEPs currently receive the following reimbursements on top of their parliamentary pay:

- Per diem: €287 per day (figures as of 1 January 2008), five days out of seven, to cover hotel and restaurant expenses

- Reimbursement for travel expenses based on first-class plane or train. Taxis can also be refunded up to €50 a week

- Budget of €16,914 per month for ‘parliamentary assistance expenses’ to pay staff

- Budget of €4,052 per month as ‘allowance for general costs’, to cover office expenses (office management, telephone, computer, postal expenses).

If MEPs are absent for more than half the plenary days, they must reimburse 50% of their annual office payments. If they participate in fewer than 50% of roll call votes, their per diem received for each day absent is halved.