An even more surreal session of the European parliament than usual in Strasbourg this week. The “highlight” was what is known in euroland as a “solemn ceremony” to mark 5o years since the assembly was born. It seems an odd title for a celebration. At least there was a birthday cake – and plenty of fizz, of course.
Solemnity there was, with the Ode to Joy, the EU’s putative anthem played by the European Youth Orchestra, marked by many members getting to their feet. But jollity, too, with much backslapping and some wonderful music. See more here.
There was also the small matter of nine MEPs being formally docked up to five days’ worth of allowances for their noisy protests at the signing of the charter of fundamental rights in December.
This is not the allowances story everyone is interested in, of course. The confidential internal audit report that showed widespread pocket-lining is still the talk of the town. By parliament’s standards, things have moved fast. The bureau of senior MEPs who run the place have agreed to review the system for employing assistants and hopefully change it before the 2009 elections. At the moment members are given 16,500 euro a month each to hire people. They often use intermediaries and the audit report revealed that some of these are controlled by the members themselves, along with other scams.
The new system will probably see assistants employed by the parliament. That would clean things up but may not save the taxpayer much - officials think they will probably have to take on 20 staff to run the operation.
Then there is the question of other expenses. The European ombudsman Last week the bureau agreed to publish for the first time in a simple form everything an MEP can claim, but not what they actually do. This is not good enough for Malta Today, the paper that filed the complaint. It sould go to court.
They are not the only ones pressing. Paul van Buitenen, the whistleblower whose revelations brought down the commission in 1999, now says he needs to do a similar clean-up of parliament, where he is now a member. He told me that if there is no reform he will start publishing cases of abuse of other allowances. He has already posted a summary of the audit report on his website. “We cannot let the pressure off,” he said.
Members moving house after the election to benefit from generous commuting allowances and those buying property to rent out at parliament’s expense are just some of the examples he has up his sleeve. This one should run and run.
Across the globe: Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on