Deficit fund causes Zoff
900 MEPs are speculating on luxury pensions
5/3/2023 8:01 am
After the corruption scandal surrounding EU Parliament Vice Kaili, new trouble is looming in Brussels. A fund financed largely with tax money promises more than 900 MEPs a luxurious supplementary pension. Enraged politicians are calling for the loss-making venture to turn off the money supply.
Lush additional pensions for MEPs from a fund set up years ago are causing incomprehension and harsh criticism. This is reported by “Investigate Europe” in cooperation with the “Tagesspiegel”. More than 900 former and current MEPs are entitled to additional payments of sometimes more than 3,000 euros a month – in addition to the pensions that they receive as MEPs anyway. According to the report, the beneficiaries also include 15 former MEPs from Germany, including the ambassador-designate in Moscow, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff.
The fund already guaranteed an additional pension for life after payments of just two years, the newspaper reports. However, he is threatened with a deficit of more than 300 million euros in pension entitlements, which is to be covered with tax money, according to the report. That made him “stunned,” long-standing European Committee chairman Gunther Krichbaum told the “Tagesspiegel”. “It cannot be conveyed to the public that such an additional pension for MEPs is being financed twice by the taxpayer – first by increasing the contributions and now to compensate for the losses,” said the CDU politician.
“If in doubt, the fund should go bankrupt”
Next week, the presidency of the EU Parliament wants to deal with the imbalance of the fund. No money has been paid into it since 2009, and two-thirds of the available capital comes from tax revenue, the newspaper continues. “No more taxpayers’ money should flow into this fund,” said Green MEP Daniel Freund. “Anyone who is already well supplied with public pensions shouldn’t be allowed to receive pensions on top of that.” Krichbaum also asked the decision-makers in Parliament to refrain from any public rescue attempt: “In case of doubt, you have to let the fund go bankrupt.”
The EU Parliament has been rocked by a corruption scandal since December. The focus is on the former Vice Chairwoman Eva Kaili. A total of around 1.5 million euros in cash were confiscated in the course of the scandal known as “Qatargate”. The affair is about alleged attempts by the Gulf Emirates of Qatar and Morocco to bribe representatives of the EU Parliament and thus influence the policies of the European Union.