Legal hitch leaves Estonian MEPs unpaid

By Martin Banks

Date: 23/09/04

ESTONIAN MEPS have been left unpaid since they were elected in June because of a hitch in national legislation.

A new law has to be passed in the Estonian parliament before the six MEPs can receive their salaries.

Socialist Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a former foreign minister of Estonia, said: "It is a bizarre situation. As far as I know, none of us is exactly starving but that is not the point. We should have been paid and we haven't been. It just isn't on."

MEPs receive the same salary as parliamentarians in their home countries and, as they are paid by their national treasury, legislation is needed in Estonia to permit this to happen. But the required law has not yet got beyond a parliamentary first reading, leaving the new MEPs without pay after three months.

They are, however, receiving travel and office expenses, which are paid by the European Parliament.

Estonian MEPs are among the lowest paid of the assembly's 732 representatives, receiving €1,200 per month, compared with €12,000 per month paid to Italian deputies.

For five of the six Estonians, the financial blow has been cushioned because, as they were members of the national parliament before being elected to the EU assembly, each receives three months' severance pay.

The exception is the ex-journalist, Marianne Mikko, formerly editor of Diplomaapia, a foreign and security policy monthly magazine. The 42-year-old Socialist MEP said: "It has been said in the past that Estonia lacks administrative capacity and now I can see what they mean. It's a good job I'm patient. What gets me is that no one [from Estonia] has taken the trouble to contact me to apologize or even explain why I have not yet been paid."

A spokesman at Estonia's permanent representation to the EU said that every effort was being made to ensure that the MEPs would receive their pay "as soon as possible".

Estonian MEPs have not received their salaries, three months after the convention of the new European Parliament in 2004, due to a national piece of legislation that has to be passed first.