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MEPs Cover Up Pensions Scam
Centre-right and Socialist MEPs have united to bury a report slamming a scheme which makes taxpayers bail out European deputies' pension funds.
The report investigates how members of the European Parliament have their pension schemes subsidised and propped up by taxpayers. MEPs contribute £9000 per year to a voluntary pension scheme which is then topped up by a whopping annual contribution of £18000 from the European taxpayer. The MEP's contribution is deducted from his monthly salary, but not from office or secretarial allowances. An honour system is meant to ensure that MEPs reimburse their office allowances for the pension contributions - but there is no system in place to ensure this happens.
Moreover, there is little in MEPs' behaviour regarding corruption and whistleblowing in the past that suggests they can be trusted to observe "Honour systems."
Bad enough, you might say. But worse, MEPs funds are protected from stock market fluctuations by... you guessed it, the taxpayer once more. Thanks to share wobbles, the pension scheme is £19 million in the red. MEPs want the taxpayer to bail them out, effectively cushioning them from the risk all pension funds run.
EURSOC wants to know if the MEPs will reimbourse the taxpayer if their pension funds perform better than expected. Works both ways, boys.
Trouble is, the European Parliament's largest groups don't even want to discuss this scam.
The Telegraph reports that the review, written by German anti-sleaze MEPs Markus Ferber, was gutted by socialist and centre-right EPP-ED members, who voted to remove all references to pensions from the report.
The centre-right and centre-left blocks make up around three-quarters of the European Parliament's members. While they can be guaranteed to vote against one another on minor issues, on major federalist issues and on corruption scams they regularly join forces to create an enormous unopposable bloc vote. Opponents complain that from within the safety of their EPP-Socialist citadel, critics of federalism (and corruption) are attacked as "extremists."
