The 28 MEPs from Britain’s Brexit Party have collectively declared outside earnings of between €2 - 4.5 million euros (£1.7 - £3.9 million) per year, making them the highest earners in the European Parliament, Transparency International said on Thursday (Sept 26th).
The party, founded by former UKIP leader and career politician Nigel Farage, won the most British seats in European elections this year. It says Britain should leave the EU without a deal.
Transparency International, a watchdog which monitors EU lobbying and outside activities of members of the European Parliament, published its report on Thursday on MEP's self-reported income from second jobs and other sources.
The head of the Brexit Party’s delegation, Nathan Gill, said it topped the list because it had selected representatives who are successful outside of politics.
“Our MEPs are not reliant on their MEPs salaries,” Gill said, adding that party chairman Richard Tice had pledged to donate his entire European Parliament salary to charity.
Each MEP is paid €8,700 per month as a base salary and €4,500 in tax-free allowances for working in the EU parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. This is in addition to multiple pension funds, private medical care for MEPs and their families, and assistants allowances that are routinely abused by "employment" of kin. Whilst the latter practice was banned after 2014, there were cases of "you employ mine, and I'll employ yours". Farage's former paid assistant, Ray Finch, on being elected to the European Parliament in 2014 promptly employed his former employer's wife as an assistant, thus circumnavigating the rules.
Nigel Farage himself had previously been outed in the Parliament by then MEP Nikki Sinclaire who drew attention to the fact that Farage was paying both his wife, Kirsten, and his "former" mistress, Annabelle Fuller, from his taxpayer-funded parliamentary allowances.
According to Transparency International, many parliamentarians have not updated their declarations in years and there is no way to know how accurate they are.
“It’s self-reported, they can do whatever they want,” said Raphaël Kergueno, Policy Officer at Transparency International EU.
Parliamentarians have to adhere to a code of conduct with respect to financial interests, and an advisory committee is in charge of examining possible violations. In the whole year of 2018 the committee audited only five parliamentarians, according to a parliament report.
“This is why the system is problematic, because they don’t take it seriously,” Kergueno said.
https://eutoday.net/news/politics/2019/nigel-farages-brexit-party-biggest-earners-in-the-european-parliament
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