Code of ethics proposal to provoke MEPs

By Martin Banks

Date: 27/01/05

Members of the European Parliament should be asked to sign up to a professional code of ethics, promising that they will handle their various allowances correctly, according to a proposal to be put before the Parliament's budgetary control committee.

The proposal, which is likely to provoke opposition from many MEPs, calls for Parliament to set a deadline to do away with its current system of travel allowances. Up to now, Parliament has insisted that the revision of rules on travel expenses should be conditional on changes to the members' statute which governs their salaries.

But Ona Jukneviciene, the Lithuanian MEP from the Liberal group ALDE who drafted the report, said: "Even in the absence of a common statute it should be possible to devise a system that is clear, transparent and fair."

Her report, on approving the accounts of the European Parliament for 2003, will be considered by the committee on Tuesday (2 February). It flags up problems with the way MEPs have been using their various allowances, noting that the Parliament's internal auditor is to report soon on the secretarial assistance allowance. Jukneviciene said that there were doubts about whether all secretarial assistants were being hired in conformity with tax and social security rules.

The 732 deputies currently receive a daily allowance of €262 for meals and accommodation, a €14,865 per month assistance allowance for staff expenses and a further €3,700 per month for general expenses.

Moves to reform the expenses system have repeatedly failed, with the latest attempt, at last December's Brussels summit, frustrated by the failure to reach agreement on a common statute, which would have set a standardised salary for MEPs of €8,500 per month.

Jukneviciene is also seeking to tighten the auditing procedures for the accounts presented by the Parliament's various political groups.

In a report, presented to the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee on 1 February 2005, Lithuanian Liberal MEP Ona Jukneviciene, argued for the current system of MEP travel allowances to be changed and for MEPs to sign up to a professional code of ethics, promising that they would handle their various allowances correctly.