Parliament assistants fear payments chaos after accession

By Martin Banks

Date: 06/11/03

AN INFLUX of new staff for MEPs from accession countries next year will cause "absolute chaos", according to the body which represents members' assistants.

Guillaume McLaughlin, vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Assistants Association, has questioned whether there will be sufficient scrutiny of the fund each MEP receives to employ staff.

Under current rules, members are allowed up to €12,000 each per month to cover the cost of employing staff, including assistants and secretaries.

Several MEPs are known to employ family members from the fund, a practice which is perfectly legal providing they have a contract of employment.

McLaughlin says, however, that the existing system is already open to potential abuse and could get worse with the influx of MEPs from accession countries, which will see the number of deputies rise from 626 to 732.

He said: "It is difficult as it is for the Parliamentary services to keep track of how this allowance is used by current members, and our fear is that it could get even harder after next June.

"The current situation is already bad enough, with most assistants being subject to widely differing social security systems in their home countries.

"But there has to be a big question mark as to what, if any, controls there will be to ensure that 732 MEPs - each employing at least two members of staff, including some in their home countries - are using this allowance as it should be used."

McLaughlin, assistant to UK Liberal deputy Andrew Duff, added: "Public money has got to be accountable."

His comments were echoed by Dutch Socialist MEP Michiel van Hulten, who wants the EU to adopt a system similar to that used by the American House of Representatives, which lays down far stricter rules over the employment of relatives by its members.

"The current system here allows some members to effectively double their family income and there do need to be more checks and balances," he said.

Parliament's spokesman David Harley said: "I think we should resist the idea that anyone coming to work for the European Parliament should be treated in any way as a second-class citizen.

"There is no hard evidence that there will be any problems and we do not want to give the impression that staff working for members from accession states will be treated any differently from staff of current MEPs."

Meanwhile, the European Economic and Social Committee this week repeated its call for EU civil society to be "fully involved" in the management of the Union's structural funds after enlargement.