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Thursday, June 05, 2008

How much do MEPs cost?

With the controversy over MEPs' expenses returning to the news, we've received a few queries along the lines of 'how much can MEPs claim in total?'

We've put together the following list of the European Parliament allowances, together with salary/ pension figures. Both salary and first pension are linked to the UK rates, the rest are EU-wide:

Salary = £61,820
First pension (after ten years service) £13,750
EU Parliament contributions to second pension: £18,500
Staff = £148 761
Office costs “general expenses” = £37,881
Daily subsistence (180 days) £50,220
Travel excess = £10,000
Travel allowance = £2,316

TOTAL = £343,248 a year

They also get life and accident insurance, and private healthcare for them and their family.

There are 785 MEPs - salaries and pensions vary quite a bit depending on nationality (eg. Italian MEPs get paid far more than their British counterparts, whilst Hungarian deputies get much less), but to give a fairly rough ball-park estimate based on the UK entitlements, the total bill for the European Parliament would be £270m or €340m.

2 comments:

Span Ows said...

Trouble is most of them aren't even worth their salary let alone all the expenses added on!

...on GBP5000 a month why do they need travel expenses? That's they're job, if they can't afford to get there they should look for another job - everyone else has to.

...and the 'daily subsistence' is obscene - that's 140 quid a dayeven if they wroked 365 days a year!!!

...am I right in thinking they also get another bonus just for showing up and doing the minimum?

Anonymous said...

Some of them fly on private jets, have offices in US, pay generous fees to their PAs, and the worst is that the salaries are probably 1/5 of their income, which comes from "consultancy fees" from different "projects" which were not going to be realised without their kind participation and "influence". These anonumous clerks are the worst csum of the society in Europe. Hope one day justice will prevail, just don't know how. There's no control over these lot whatsoever :(