MEPs living in ‘cloud cuckoo land’ over pay and perks deal

Date: 20/07/2000

By John Shelley

MEPS have come under fierce attack for attempting to exclude reform of their expenses system from any deal on a common salary for Euro-parliamentarians.

EU diplomats have accused members of the Parliament's legal affairs committee of living in "cloud cuckoo land" after they voted to reject a key element of a report on the planned common statute for MEPs drawn up by a group of independent 'wise men'. This recommended a significant increase in most members' pay in return for a clamp-down on abuses of the expenses regime.

In extraordinary scenes, MEPs who do not normally attend the committee flooded into the chamber to force through a paper which, while welcoming many of the wise men's suggestions, insists that expenses must be treated separately from the statute issue. Most were from Germany and Italy, two countries where MEPs have the most to lose from the harmonisation of pay levels because of the high salaries they currently receive.

The move has sparked dismay among other MEPs who fear it will further tarnish the Parliament's image, been attacked by EU diplomats as totally unrealistic, and criticised by members of the wise men's committee. "The trade-off was clearly between the salary that was higher on one hand and putting a stop as much as is humanly possible to all the other arrangements like expenses which act as a complement to the salary," said Niels Ersbol, former secretary-general of the Council of Ministers and one of the wise men. "We think that the two things have to go together."

EU governments are equally adamant that the two issues must be tackled jointly. "What the committee is proposing to do is take out of the deal the very thing which allows the deal to make sense," said one diplomat.

Many senior MEPs have also criticised the committee's move. "Behind it are the sentiments of a lot of German members who feel it is against their parliamentary dignity to be subject to far-reaching controls on expenses," said Green Group leader Heidi Hautala. "I think it is a characteristic of our dignity that we are able to be transparent."

But German Socialist MEP Willi Rothley, the Parliament's rapporteur on the issue, insists that only the assembly's internal ruling body has the power to set expenses rules. "It is inconceivable that civil servants who are totally unaware of the political life of members should be able to determine what constitutes expenditure arising from the exercise of the office of MEP and what does not," states his report.

But diplomats have accused Rothley and his supporters of selectively choosing from the wise men's report, and dismissed his alternative suggestion that reforms of the expenses system could be agreed in tandem with - but not as part of - the statute, arguing that this would allow MEPs to change the rules at a later date.

Political group leaders, who must now decide whether to pursue Rothley's approach, are coming under intense pressure not to do so. The French presidency has written to Parliament President Nicole Fontaine urging her to use the wise men's report as the basis for negotiations with member states.

Diplomats from other EU countries also insist this is the only possible approach. "The only way we can get a solution on this now is for group leaders to take back the initiative. If we leave this with Rothley and his friends, we will never get a deal," said one.

Most believe that a majority of MEPs favour reforming the expenses system and predict that the committee's decision will be overturned. "The Parliament is feeling increasingly embarrassed that its own reform process does not match up to what is going on in other institutions like the Commission," said one.

MEPs have come under fierce attack for attempting to exclude reform of their expenses system from any deal on a common salary for Euro-parliamentarians.