Internal audit to urge reform of MEPs’ assistants’ hiring habits

By Martin Banks

Date: 03/02/05

AN internal audit by the European Parliament is to recommend a radical review of the conditions under which MEPs' assistants are employed. The investigation was launched two years ago following concerns that many assistants do not have health or social security cover. MEPs have been asked to provide details of assistants' salary, tax and social security.

A Parliamentary source said that the audit, which will be completed next month, is to conclude that the current system is subject to too many different and complex legal variables and needs reviewing.

Assistants are hired on a personal basis by members, who are each given nearly €15,000 a month by the Parliament to cover staff costs.

But the chaotic situation in which assistants operate is illustrated by the fact that no one knows exactly how many are employed in Brussels, although the figure is thought to be about 2,000.

The long-running issue of assistants' pay and conditions is also the subject of an inquiry by a Parliamentary working group.

The group is to complete its work in the summer. Its chairman, French Green MEP Gerard Onesta, said that he favours a single statute for assistants - which would mean all being paid and taxed the same - and a register of non-accredited assistants to improve transparency.

At present, MEPs' assistants are paid and taxed differently.

According to the European Parliamentary Assistants' Association (EPAA), this has led to wide discrepancies, with some assistants receiving €800 per month while others earn as much as €4,000.

Some assistants are actually paid more than the MEPs they work for.

As a Lithuanian deputy on a monthly salary of €800, Ona Jukneviciene is one of the lowest paid of the 732 MEPs. She pays her Italian assistant a net monthly salary of €2,150.

Onesta's group is expected to address the controversial system which allows MEPs to employ wives and daughters as assistants.

Under current rules, the Parliament's register of assistants only includes accredited staff, thought to number about 2,000 in Brussels, but Onesta says it should also include the estimated 1,000 non-accredited assistants who work in MEPs' home countries.

MEPs have been known to employ family members and pay them from the monthly assistance fund, a practice which is perfectly legal provided they have a contract of employment. But the practice is open to potential abuse.

Onesta, one of Parliament's vice-presidents, is against MEPs employing family members at all and says there needs to be more transparency.

"We need to know exactly who is working for who so there is no room for suspicion. I employ two non-accredited assistants but have included them on the register of assistants because I want to be up front about everything," he said.

Guntars Ronomovskis, president of the 350-strong EPAA and assistant to Latvian Liberal MEP Georgs Andrejevs, said: "The current system has got to change for various reasons.

"Some assistants are paid four times more than others and we would like the introduction of a minimum salary to address this anomaly. Hopefully, this time something will actually be done."

Parliament's director-general of finances, Roger Van Haeren, admits the current system is "very confusing".

He said: "There are 25 member states. That means potentially 25 different salary and social security systems under which assistants may be employed and that can lead to a lot of discrepancies."

But many in Parliament remain sceptical about the chances of an assistants' statute. The assistant of a British MEP said: "Things will only happen once the members' statute is adopted which is highly unlikely."

An internal audit by the European Parliament, due to be completed in March 2005, is to recommend a radical review of the conditions under which MEPs' assistants are employed. The investigation was launched in 2003 following concerns that many assistants did not have health or social security cover. MEPs were asked to provide details of assistants' salary, tax and social security. Assistants are hired on a personal basis by members, who are each given nearly €15,000 a month by the Parliament to cover staff costs.