Travel allowances put on budget agenda

Date: 21/05/1998

By Rory Watson

PRESSURE is growing inside the European Parliament to use next year's EU budget as a vehicle to clamp down on members' travel allowances and ensure only actual costs incurred are reimbursed.

A clear marker on the need for reform will be put down during the Parliament's mini plenary session in Brussels next week when MEPs are expected to approve a report prepared by Italian Christian Democrat member Vincenzo Viola laying down guidelines for the institution's administrative expenditure next year.

This detailed document stipulates that before the 1999 budgetary estimates are examined in greater detail by all MEPs in October, the working group which is drawing up a common statute for the 626 members should make public any proposals which might have an impact on the Parliament's expenditure next year.

At the same time, Viola's paper emphasises that the justification for each individual budgetary item must be clearer.

The two statements amount to a clear instruction to the Parliament's most senior members to decide within the next few months on the changes they want made both to MEPs' allowances and to their status as elected representatives.

Next year will be a particularly significant one for the Parliament, given the European elections in June.

There are many within the institution who fear that its credibility will be damaged if serious attempts are not made to clamp down even further on parliamentary allowances after a spate of embarrassing criticism last year.

Equally, there is a firm belief that the end of one five-year parliamentary term and the start of another is a suitable watershed to introduce the reforms.

These could well have financial consequences, and certainly would if the Parliament managed to convince EU governments to treat all MEPs alike - with the same salaries, responsibilities and privileges - and the resulting increase in income which some would inevitably receive were to be paid from the annual Union budget. In addition, there is growing cross-party support for using the budgetary exercise to eliminate any possibility of members making a profit on their travel expenses.

In an attempt to tighten up existing procedures, the Parliament last year insisted that MEPs must hand in their boarding passes in future if they wished to be reimbursed.

But the refunds are still based on the distance travelled, rather than on the actual costs incurred. As a result, members receive 0.76 ecu per kilometre for the first 400 kilometres of a journey and 0.38 ecu for each subsequent one.

There is, however, one exception. If, for example, during a Brussels committee week an MEP travels somewhere else for a day or two and then returns to the Belgian capital, he or she is only refunded the exact cost of the ticket used.

A group of MEPs is now arguing that this system of reimbursing a 'voyage intermediare' should be applied to every journey from July 1999 and should be specifically written into the Parliament's budget alongside the funds earmarked for travel allowances.

Such a change in the rules would undoubtedly produce noticeable savings and would protect MEPs from accusations that they are profiting from the system. But it is likely to be opposed by members who fund other travel expenses, such as car travel, taxis and overnight hotels, from their surplus.

There is, however, little doubt that many MEPs believe the Parliament will pay the price during next year's Euro-election if its members cannot go before the electorate confident that the internal system of allowances is transparent and openly fair.

The real test of support for change will come in October when MEPs vote on next year's budget for the first time. The vote will be recorded and it is a safe bet that any members opposing the reform will be reminded of this by their colleagues.