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.