Saturday 10th July 2021
Additional friction in the Bundestag
Additional earnings rise to 53 million euros
Members of the Bundestag earn around 10,000 euros a month. For some, however, the diets don’t seem to be enough. A new study now shows that members of the Union and the FDP in particular earn large sums of money on the side.
According to a report, the additional income of members of the Bundestag has risen sharply in the current legislative period. Since an initial balance in 2013 of an estimated 30 million euros, they have now increased to around 53 million euros, writes the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, citing a Study by the Otto Brenner Foundation, which belongs to the union IG Metall. 62 percent of the secondary wage earners come from the Union and FDP parliamentary groups.
According to the study, 261 of the 709 members of the Bundestag stated that, in addition to their mandate, they also have paid sideline jobs. Additional income is therefore referred to as the “problem of a privileged minority of MPs”. A further differentiation can also be made among MPs with additional income: There are 17 MPs who account for half of the total income. You would have stated an average of at least 700,000 euros in additional income per year.
According to the study, the proportion of MPs with part-time employment has also grown – from around 33 to 35 percent since the 2009 to 2013 electoral term , or work for associations and foundations. “It can be assumed that with every report of a secondary activity a consideration was provided – that is, time was taken at the expense of the mandate,” the study says. Their authors also point out that the purpose of the diets is actually to make the MPs “independent of other sources of income”.
According to the study, Liberal MPs are most likely to have sideline jobs – 62 percent of the parliamentary group’s men and women do so. In the Union it is 43 percent, in the AfD 32, in the SPD, Greens and Left between 21 and 26 percent. Greens and leftists benefit the least financially. The Greens only account for half a percent of the estimated 53 million euros in ancillary income, and the Left almost 2 percent. The Union MPs get the biggest chunks with an average of almost 59 percent. Gender also plays a role: 41 percent of men have a secondary job, but only 24 percent of women.
Following a tightening of the transparency rules as a result of the mask affair and cases of paid lobbying work for Azerbaijan by Union MPs, additional income of more than a thousand euros per month will no longer have to be specified in stages, but rather precisely quantified. The study criticizes the fact that even with the new procedure, precise control of the information is not guaranteed. The author Sven Osterberg suggests that a separate commission made up of members of parliament and external experts be appointed to examine the matter. An upper limit for additional income is also conceivable.
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