Europese Ombudsman raadt Parlementsleden aan details financiën openbaar te maken (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - MEPs should make available to citizens details about money they receive from the EU budget, such as their daily allowances and grants for travel or for assistants, the bloc's ombudsman has recommended.
"MEPs have to be aware of the public interest in their use of public funds," P. Nikiforos Diamandouros i said in a statement explaining his preliminary verdict in a dispute between the European Parliament's administration and a Maltese journalist.
The reporter complained to the ombudsman after he was denied access to details of payments received by five Maltese MEPs, arguing that they "should be open to scrutiny from their constituents."
Parliament i officials argued that the disclosure of such details would breach rules on the protection of personal data while the use of public funds by MEPs is monitored by the budgetary control committee and the Court of Auditors.
Moreover, the administrators said that it was not up to them to provide such information and that they are not even allowed to distribute it among MEPs.
Transparency v. privacy concerns
But Mr Diamandouros has taken the journalist's side, in line with an opinion by the European Data Protection Supervisor whom he consulted on the matter.
The supervisor argued that "although the position of MEP did not mean that MEPs should be denied protection of their privacy, the basic consideration had to be that the public had a right to be informed about their behaviour."
When documents about the expenses of the deputies are disclosed, the supervisor recommended that the names of MEPs' assistants be blanked out so as to prevent their political views being revealed through the link with their MEPs.
"This case is important because it highlights the need to carefully balance the right to privacy with the public interest in openness when deciding whether the public has a right to access information of this kind," the ombudsman pointed out.
On the basis of these considerations, the ombudsman has concluded that the EU legislature has "wrongly rejected, in its entirety, the complainant's application for access to the data" which constitutes a case of maladministration.
The parliament can offer a defence of its position until the end of this year.
Time running out for fat allowances
MEPs' salaries and perks have sparked public interest and controversy for years.
From mid 2009 however, new rules will see some of the most criticised provisions dropped.
The new statute - adopted in June 2005 - will provide the same salary and other payments for MEPs across member states. It will be paid out from the bloc's budget - so far it has been covered by member states.
The monthly pay for the deputies is to be levelled at 7000 euro, which corresponds to 38.5 percent of the wages of a judge at the European Court of Justice.
That will mean a boost for deputies from all member states, apart from Italy and Austria where salaries come to around 12,000 euro and 7,500 euro respectively. Deputies from Ireland and the UK are currently getting about the same pay as those proposed for the future.
On the other hand, the figure will be a huge boost for MEPs from central and eastern Europe, where the salaries range from around 1000 euro in Latvia to over 4000 euro in Slovenia.
End of flat-rate travel grants
The new system will also ditch the existing provisions for reimbursements of MEPs' travel budgets.
At the moment the deputies get a flat-rate refund for their travel between different working places (up to €971), and from home to work (0.24 euro per km), plus an extra travel allowance of €3,736 per year for work-related journeys throughout the year.
Under the new statute, all reimbursements will be based on actual receipts from travel tickets.
While MEPs will get less for their journeys, they will still keep their daily allowance of €268, plus the money for running their office of up to €14,865 per month.