Giscard d’Estaing denies ‘outrageous’ wage demands

Date: 31/01/02

By Martin Banks

VALERY Giscard d'Estaing has denied that he demanded a salary of €20,000 a month for heading the European Union's new Convention.

The 75-year-old former French president was widely reported to be seeking an income equivalent to that of Commission head Romano Prodi to chair the Convention, which starts debating the future of Europe at the end of next month.

He was also said to have asked for a luxury suite of rooms in a Brussels hotel for a year, even though he is not expected to be permanently based in the Belgian capital.

But Giscard d'Estaing has dismissed the reports as 'absolute nonsense'.

A spokesman at his Paris office said: 'He never asked for a salary matching that of Prodi or luxury hotel rooms. To suggest otherwise just isn't true.'

Giscard d'Estaing, who was given the post at December's Laeken summit amid acrimonious bickering by the 15 member states, will not receive a salary but he will have his expenses - about €1,000 per day - reimbursed.

Of the Convention's €10.5 million budget, €340,000 will be set aside to cover the travel and accommodation expenses of the former president and his two deputies.

The level of expenses being paid to Giscard d'Estaing was branded 'outrageous' by Danish eurosceptic deputy Jens-Peter Bonde, who said the Frenchman should receive 'not a cent more' than an MEP's daily allowance of €250.

He said: 'I'm sure he could easily get by in Brussels for a lot less than €1,000 a day,' Bonde said. 'As an ex-French president he is already well paid by the French taxpayer. Why should the European taxpayer also pay for his upkeep?'

The wrangles over Giscard d'Estaing's reported salary demands and the appointment to the Convention of Italy's post-fascist National Alliance party leader, Gianfranco Fini, had cast a shadow over preparations for the 28 February launch of the EU's effort to bring more transparency and democratic legitimacy to the reform of its institutions.

Fini's appointment, however, was confirmed at Monday's meeting of EU foreign ministers after the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany, which had raised initial objections, decided not to pursue the issue.

The task of the Convention is to examine how to 'reconnect' the EU with citizens who perceive it as distant and over-bureaucratic and to discuss how the EU will operate when it takes in up to 12 new members from southern and eastern Europe.

Among the thorny issues to be examined are further restrictions on the use of national vetoes, the distribution of power between nation states and Brussels and the difficulty of persuading young people to take an interest in the EU.

The Convention's budget covers the ten months that it will meet this year and includes €375,000 to help meet the costs of Giscard d'Estaing's secretariat. Meanwhile, €150,000 will cover 'representational costs'.

Of the €10.5m total, the European Commission will supply €2.6m, the Parliament €1m and the secretariat of the Council of Ministers €0.4m.

The remaining €6.5m will be provided 'in kind' by the EU institutions, member states and the 13 candidate countries for their representatives in the Convention.

The secretariat will have a staff of up to 15, headed by Sir John Kerr, who recently retired as permanent secretary to the UK foreign office.

Kerr, a former permanent representative to the EU and ex-British ambassador to Washington, was nominated by Pierre de Boissieu, the deputy secretary-general of the Council of Ministers.

Giscard's press spokesman is expected to be Niklaus Meyer-Landrut, currently press attaché to the German permanent representation to the EU.

The 105-member Convention will meet once a month, with the first meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels. It will report back to the EU heads of state and government with recommendations in 2003.

The convention will have 105 members. There will be 16 MEPs and the 15 EU governments will each have one representative. Each national parliament will send two delegates.

So far, 50 members have been named:

President: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Vice-Presidents: Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene.

Commission: Michel Barnier (Regional Policy) and António Vitorino (Justice and Home Affairs).

MEPs: Elmar Brok, Timothy Kirkhope, Alain Lamassoure, Hanja Maij-Weggen, Inigo Mendez de Vigo, Antonio Tajani (European People's Party); Klaus Hansch, Olivier Duhamel, Luis Marinho, Linda McAvan, Anne Van Lancker (Group of European Socialists); Andrew Duff (Group of European Liberals); Johannes Voggenhuber (Greens); Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann (European Left); Christina Muscardini (Union for Europe of the Nations); Jens-Peter Bonde (Europe of Democracies and Diversities).

Member states

Belgium: Government representative: Louis Michel, foreign minister.

Germany: Government: Peter Glotz, an academic.

Denmark: Government: Henning Christophersen, former Commission vice-president. MPs: Peter Skaarup and Henrik Dam Kristensen.

Finland: Government: Teija Tiilikainen, a political scientist. MPs: Kimmo Kiljunen and Matti Vanhanen.

France: Government: Pierre Moscovici, Europe minister. MPs: Alain Barrau and Hubert Haenel.

Italy: Government: Gianfranco Fini. MPs: Lamberto Dini and Marco Follini

Luxembourg: Government: Jacques Santer, ex-Commission president. MPs: Paul Helminger and Ben Fayot.

Netherlands: Government: Hans van Mierlo. MPs: W. van Eekelen and Frans Timmermans.

Portugal: Government: Joao de Vallera, a former ambassador.

UK: Government: Peter Hain, Europe minister. MPs: Gisela Stuart and David Heathcote-Amory.

Spain: Government: Ana de Palacio, MEP.

Cyprus: Government: Michalis Attalides.

Czech Republic: Government: Jan Kavan, deputy prime minister. MPs: Jan Zhradil and Josef Zieleniec.

Slovakia: Government: Jan Figel, foreign affairs minister.

Observers: Goke Frerichs, Roger Briesch and Anne-Marie Sigmund (all members of European Economic and Social Committee) Jacob Söderman (European Ombudsman).

Valery Giscard d'Estaing has denied reports that he demanded a salary of €20,000 a month for heading the European Union's new Convention on the future of Europe.