Reform of travel expenses faces long delay

Date: 29/10/1998

By Rory Watson

THE European Parliament will not be able to introduce the limited reforms to the system for paying MEPs' travel allowances agreed last week for at least six months.

That delay, the Parliament's refusal to sanction more radical changes to the system which would have linked expense claims to the amount actually spent, and the chaotic way in which the decision was taken have dealt a serious blow to the institution's efforts to improve its tarnished image in the run-up to next year's Euro-elections.

The new formula devised by President José María Gil-Robles and the Parliament's 14 vice-presidents was only agreed after MEPs split down the middle over rival schemes and subsequently traded insults, accusing each other of hypocrisy for opposing more radical proposals.

Details of the new arrangements must now be worked out by the Parliament's business managers. But most of the delay will be caused by the alterations needed to the institution's accounting system. As a result, the reforms are unlikely to take effect before 1 May next year, only six weeks before voters go to the polls to elect a new Parliament.

Under the new system, the present per-kilometre allowance will be replaced by "an amount equivalent to the normal fare" for the plane journey from an MEP's home to Brussels or Strasbourg.

This will be supplemented by a kilometre rate to cover travel costs from a member's home to the airport and an additional distance allowance for each return journey made. MEPs living between 500 and 1,000 kilometres from the Parliament's place of work will receive 100 ecu and the allowance will rise in bands, with the most far-flung members based more than 2,400 kilometres away eligible for 500 ecu. But MEPs from Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands would not qualify when attending meetings in Brussels, for example, as they live within a 500-kilometre radius of the city.

Critics complain that the new measures do not go nearly far enough to clean up the Parliament's image. They are still not based on the actual costs incurred by MEPs and the distance allowance is seen by many as a device to compensate members who would otherwise lose through the reform.

However, defenders of the changes maintain that they will produce annual savings of just over 1 million ecu and respond to the Court of Auditors' earlier criticism that the kilometre allowance enabled MEPs to make unjustified profits of some 30% on their travel.

"This is not the end of the story. It is the latest step in a long series of reforms. The new travel arrangements are transitional until the adoption of a members' statute," said one parliamentary official.

But whether that statute, with its provision for a common salary for all MEPs, ever comes into being is largely a matter for EU governments.