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Thursday, March 12, 2009 by

Ivan Camilleri, Brussels

Transparency commitment for PN MEPs

The Nationalist Party's executive committee is tonight expected to approve new transparency rules for its MEPs to come into force in time for June's European Parliament elections.

The proposals, drawn up by the party's head of delegation in Brussels, MEP Simon Busuttil, will require all Nationalist MEP candidates to sign a transparency commitment obliging them to start publishing full details about EP reimbursements related to travel, office and staff and other subsistence allowances.

The rules will come into force together with the EP's introduction of a new MEP statute, which will see the salary of a Maltese MEP increasing to €84,000 a year from the present €15,540. It also introduces stricter controls on how MEPs should use and account for their lucrative allowances, which now stand at about €300,000 annually.

The proposed PN rules go into great detail with regard to each and every allowance an MEP is allocated and requires its MEPs to declare all the allowances assigned to them during the course of their mandate. Nationalist MEPs will also be required to prepare accounts on a regular basis and these must be scrutinised by a qualified auditor who will, in turn, issue a certificate of compliance.

MEPs will have to prominently display all the required information on their websites so that the public and journalists can immediately blow the whistle if this is not done and name and shame the MEP involved.

Labour is also preparing to introduce more transparency rules for its MEPs, however, details have not been divulged yet.

The rules are intended to instil more trust in the work of MEPs before June's elections following repeated accusations as to how MEPs spend their hefty allowances.

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9 Comments

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D Battistino

Mar 13th 2009, 10:23

@Igalea
Qed tithajjar?

Good initiative Simon, this is the way forward, for a new way of doing politics. Min ma ghandux minn xiex jisthi hekk jirraguna.

lgalea

Mar 12th 2009, 16:52

J Martinelli
Typists devil Martinelli.
Normal citizens, those who pay for them.

Phillip Balzan

Mar 12th 2009, 14:26

Dr Busuttil, has definitely shown integrity in his work for us, the last 5 years. He has been a leader in a lot of issuesin relation to the EU. It is a pity that not all the five MEPs are like him, as we would have gotten much more benefits from the EU. I am sure the vote for transperancy rules will pass without any problems.... Keep it up

J Martinelli

Mar 12th 2009, 14:15

@ igalea

I didn't know that the EU train was that serious! Or did you mean 'gravey train'?

Are you implying that those contesting the MEP elections are 'abnormal'?

Sometimes it is hard to define a 'normal citizen'!

g. scerri

Mar 12th 2009, 13:35

This is good. It would have been better if such transparency rules had not waited for "the EP's introduction of a new MEP statute" to control the situation after years of abuse on the part of some MEPs.

grace cassar

Mar 12th 2009, 12:18

Another feather in Dr. Busutil's hat. I wish all politicians were like that. What an honest person. I hope that all maltese people take this into account when they are voting in the coming elections for the European Parliament and vote for Dr. Busutil, cause Malta really needs to have such people representing our country in Brussels.

Peter Azzopardi

Mar 12th 2009, 11:22

Well done Busuttil! MEPs have for too long gone about their day to day business without being accountable to anyone. While in a few the system still resulted in work (Busuttil) in several cases this resulted in play (pretty much the rest)...

While the cats away.............................

lgalea

Mar 12th 2009, 09:59

No wonder we have all these candidates trying to jump on the eu grave train at the expense of the normal citizens!!!

carmel tonna

Mar 12th 2009, 09:44

A recommendation:

EP reimbursement just considers the input side of the equation - what EPs get.

The electorate needs to know what they give back, their output: EPs should submit quarterly reports listing meetings attended (including type, subject discussed and duration), reports submitted (subejct and destination), speeches delivered (place, duration and subject), communications with other EU institutions (which institution, type of communication, objective of communication), realised and failed objectives, etc., etc.

It is only then that one could speak of TRANSPARENCY COMMITMENT.

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Ivan Camilleri, Brussels

Transparency commitment for PN MEPs

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