WHAT MEPs GET IN SALARY AND EXPENSES

Salary

All MEPs receive a monthly pre-tax salary of €7,957 (€ 95,484 per year). They pay EU tax and accident insurance contributions, after which the monthly salary is €6,201.  MEPs’ basic salary is set at 38.5% of the salary of a judge at the European Court of Justice. The MEPs pension fund is non-contributory. All payments are made from the Parliament’s budget and none are deducted from the salary of MEPs. The salary package includes life and accident insurance, medical insurance, and payments towards language and computer tuition (if ever used).

Staff costs

Staff members are paid from a budget called the ‘parliamentary allowance’. This allowance covers staff salaries as well as associated costs such as pensions, national insurance, tax and training. This allowance can also be used to cover temporary staff costs and expenses for interns and volunteers. The maximum staff allowance available for each MEP is €21,209 per month. MEPs do not receive any of this money directly. Brussels based staff costs are administrated by the European Parliament.

Office costs

MEPs receive an allowance called the ‘general expenditure allowance’ to cover their office costs. This includes expenditure on the constituency office rent, phones, IT and utility bills. MEPs receive €4,299 a month (€ 51,588 per year) to cover these costs. Any money which is not spent is returned to the European Parliament at the end of the year.

Accommodation/subsistence allowance

MEPs receive a Brussels/Strasbourg allowance of € 304 per day towards away-from-home accommodation and subsistence costs i.e. hotel rooms and/or flat rental and meals. This allowance is paid only when the MEP is working in the Parliament in Brussels or Strasbourg. To obtain this they must sign a register at any time between the hours of 7am and 11pm on working days to indicate they have been in the Parliament building for all or part of each day. During parliament’s plenary sessions, the amount is halved if an MEP is not present for 50% of the roll-call votes. This allowance is a flat fee, so MEPs cannot ask for any other accommodation or living related costs such as meals, taxis, food shopping, or furniture to be reimbursed. Parliament pays a sum of €152 a day, plus accommodation and breakfast expenses, for attendance at meetings held outside the European Community, provided that the MEP signs the official attendance register for the meeting.

Travel

MEPs are reimbursed at cost for the price of the tickets they buy to travel between their home and the Parliament in Brussels or Strasbourg. In addition, MEPs receive ‘duration’ and ‘distance’ allowances for journeys to and from Parliament that are intended to cover incidental travel costs. They are calculated on a sliding scale, and the exact sum paid depends on the location of each MEP’s home.

MEPs can also claim for up to 48 single journeys within their own country by train or plane or boat (think Finland or Greece), or for car journeys in the eight other largest Member States up to a maximum distance of 24,000 km annually at the rate of €0.49/km. MEPs from other countries have a smaller distance allowance. For journeys of less than 800km no fuel receipts or other evidence of travel need be produced.

An annual allowance of up to €4,148 annually is available to MEPs to meet the cost of travel, accommodation and subsistence when making journeys outside their own country in connection with their parliamentary work.

General office management costs

MEPs currently receive an office costs allowance known as “general expenditure” of €4,299 per month . The bulk of this allowance is used to pay for the cost of the office in their home country. This covers expenditure on rent, equipment, stationery, postage, telephone and other communications. In addition some of this allowance is used to purchase supplies and equipment such as stationary and postage in the parliamentary office.

The European Parliament insists that the allowance is paid into a personal bank account of each member. The Parliament does not require MEPs to produce receipts to justify use of this money.

Transitional Allowance

For those who lost the elections, MEPs are entitled to a ‘transitional allowance’ which equates to paying one month’s salary for each year an MEPs has been in office. But as a minimum MEPs will get six month’s pay, despite each term despite each term lasting only five years.

Summary

Parliamentarians cost a total of € 781 million paid by 500 million EU citizens. In the 28 EU countries, a total of 8,336 parliamentarians are discharging their parliamentary mandate: 7,584 parliamentarians in the national parliaments of their respective countries and now 751 MEPs in the Strasbourg EU Parliament. Taking their salaries as a base, parliamentarians cost a total of € 781 million paid by 500 million EU citizens – overall €  620 million in their national parliaments plus  € 160 million per year for the EU Parliament.

An average monthly salary and other allowances of € 17,827 is received by an MEP equal to € 213,924 a year including base salary and additional extras such as allowances, attendance fees and travel expenses. In addition, the costs for offices and staff for the plenary members of the European Parliament make up an amount of up to €  21,209 per month or up to € 254,508  per year.

One MEP comes into receiving € 1,069,622  during the 5-year legislative session adding up outlined allowances . This amount, taken as a basis, means that a parliamentarian in the European Parliament meanwhile earns 878 percent more than a normal citizens (€ 21,844 gross per year) – Euro crisis aside.