Expenses manipulation which makes tens of thousands of pounds for MEPs and is bringing the European Parliament seriously into disrepute must be ended now, the president of the parliament has told deputies.
But the reform of the system will probably only be possible at the cost of doubling Irish MEPs' salaries from their current parity with TDs to more than £70,000 a year.
Stung by criticism from seven heads of government at the Cardiff summit and by an as-yet-unpublished, highly critical draft report from the EU's Court of Auditors, the president of the parliament, Mr Jose Maria Gil-Robles, has put his foot on the accelerator of a slow-moving reform process with a personal letter to all MEPs this weekend. One of the main targets for criticism is the travel expenses system under which the parliament pays a mileage rate to MEPs in respect of regular travel between their capital and either Brussels or Strasbourg, usually three weeks out of four. This rate works out well in excess of the price of a mid-week business-class return ticket and is paid automatically, irrespective of how the MEP travels.
The result is that Irish MEPs, who travel tourist class on back-to-back tickets, can make hundreds of pounds per trip. Until recently they did not even have to show evidence of travel, and some less scrupulous ones might stay in Brussels for the weekend while claiming double the travel allowance.
There have also been concerns that signing-in allowances of £160 a day simply resulted in some MEPs clocking in and returning home immediately. They must now attend at least half the divisions for the sessions they attend. Each MEP also receives some £6,500 a month for research and secretarial assistance, accounting for which the court is also believed to have criticised.
While MEPs are genuinely embarrassed by the perception of abuse such a system produces, and have belatedly imposed some checks at the margins, they point to the unusually heavy cost of servicing European constituencies and the inequity of the current salary system under which each is paid only what their national public representative is paid.
The result is that while Italian MEPs luxuriate on £80,000 a year, the Greeks are paid a mere £15,000. Irish MEPs are on the Dail rate of some £36,000.
In his letter to each MEP this weekend, Mr Gil-Robles has proposed a system which would peg their salaries and expense entitlements at a rate equivalent to an A3 Commission official, about £70,000 a year.
