Parliament prepares for salary deal

By Martin Banks

Date: 16/06/05

PROPOSALS for a common statute and uniform salary for MEPs will be voted on next Thursday (23 June) in the European Parliament.

The Parliament's legal affairs committee yesterday (15 June) approved proposals from the Luxembourg presidency by 21 votes to none with two abstentions.

If the plenary endorses the deal, it would then have to be approved by member states, probably before the UK takes over the EU presidency on 1 July.

The legal affairs committee chairman, Italian centre-right MEP Giuseppe Gargani, hailed the vote as the "final act" in what had been a "very lengthy, laborious" process.

A total of 103 amendments were put forward but, aside from a few minor technicalities, the proposals remained unchanged.

Members will get the same fixed salary of €7,000 a month, equivalent to an annual salary of €84,000. In turn their expenses system will be reformed so that they can only claim for expenses actually incurred.

Under the existing system, MEPs get paid the same as members of their national parliaments, so that salaries vary from €761 a month in Hungary to €12,007 a month in Italy.

The proposed changes would come into force for all MEPs in 2009, although there is a two-mandate phase-out clause for salaries that would enable sitting MEPs to maintain the present arrangements until 2019.

Anticipation of a vote in the European Parliament on proposals for a common statute and uniform salary for MEPs on 23 June 2005. The Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee on 15 June 2005 approved proposals from the Luxembourg presidency by 21 votes to none with two abstentions.