New drive to reform MEPs’ allowances

Date: 31/10/1996

By Rory Watson

SENIOR MEPs will consider a major overhaul of the European Parliament's internal rules next week following the latest outcry over the financial allowances paid to members.

The Parliament's President Klaus Hänsch has summoned the institution's vice-presidents and political group leaders to a special bureau meeting on 6 November which will consider tightening up a range of internal rules that have remained unchanged since MEPs were directly elected for the first time in 1979.

“I have long been of the view that reforms are necessary. I now hope I will have the political support to get these reforms through,” he explained.

Hänsch, who has made improvements to the Parliament's internal procedures a leitmotif of his presidency, will be pressing his colleagues to tackle a number of outstanding issues.

If he wins their support, the changes can be implemented without having to be put to the full Parliament.

Hänsch has made it clear he wants substantial reforms to the travel, per diem and office allowances MEPs receive from the Parliament's annual budget.

He will also be looking to end once and for all the twilight legal status in which many members' assistants now operate and to clarify certain aspects of the way the Euro MPs' voluntary pension fund operates.

The latest pressure for internal reform follows the screening last week of a television programme drawing attention to the tendency for some MEPs to claim their daily allowance on the final day of a Strasbourg plenary session and then fail to participate in the subsequent votes.

One of those featured in the film was Danish Socialist MEP John Iversen. Although unavailable for comment this week, Iversen has, ironically, repeatedly called in the past for changes to the system so that MEPs are reimbursed against hotel and travel receipts instead of receiving a fixed allowance as they do at present.

But an eleventh-hour attempt by Green and United Left MEPs to introduce such a change to the rules during last week's Strasbourg plenary session was heavily defeated.

At their 6 November meeting, MEPs will be asked to consider introducing a reimbursement-against-receipt rule.

Another idea being aired is to require members to sign a morning and afternoon attendance register, making them eligible for just half the daily allowance each time.

Former Danish Prime Minister and Christian Democrat MEP Poul Schlüter floated other ideas in a letter to Hänsch last week. While approving of the practice of producing receipts and setting reasonable limits to such reimbursements, he also argued that the daily allowance should be reduced to just 50 ecu to cover expenses such as taxis and meals.

“The travel and residence allowances of the members have once again given rise to considerable discussion and criticism in several member states. This is, in my view, quite understandable and fully justified,” he wrote.

More radically, Schlüter suggested scrapping the practice of keeping daily attendance lists and proposed that the per diem allowances be paid only to MEPs whose presence in the debating chamber had been registered by an electronic vote.

This idea is bound to run into opposition, however, with many MEPs arguing that the fact they are not present when votes are taken in the Strasbourg debating chamber does not necessarily mean they have left the parliamentary premises.

They argue that some MEPs may be working in their offices, attending meetings, talking to visitors and constituents, or be involved in other forms of parliamentary business.

In a bid to end uncertainty over the position of MEPs' staff, Hänsch will propose Brussels-based assistants be given official status for the first time. In exchange for employment rights, they would pay EU tax and social security contributions.