MEPs Expenses: Ministers Miss Opportunity for Reform

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 26th Jan 2004

The EU´s Council of Ministers decision today to reject a deal on reform of MEPs pay and expenses is a "missed opportunity" according to the European Liberal Democrats.

London's Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Baroness Sarah Ludford said:

"The Council´s decision to reject reform of the pay and expenses of MEPs is very disappointing. We have debated this issue for over twenty years, and when Parliament finally agrees a compromise which could have broken the deadlock, reform has fallen at the last hurdle. Ministers have missed an opportunity to introduce transparency and accountability into the salaries and expenses of MEPs."

"Liberal Democrats have always supported a reform of the system based on equal pay for equal work with a travel expenses system based on reimbursement of real costs. We will continue to campaign for this in future, but it is hard to see how progress can be made without agreement on a common salary for MEPs."

The proposal on the table by the Parliament would have put an end to an expenses system that is open to abuse. An agreement from the Council would also have introduced a common salary for all MEPs, with the possibility for governments to levy national income tax as now. At present, MEPs are paid according to the salaries of their counterparts in national parliaments, leading to wide disparities. Transitional arrangements were foreseen in the proposed statute for accession countries.