Unethical behavior in the European Parliament: Legislators at the EU hang on to their perks - by Dan Bilefsky
Despite public vows by members of the European Parliament to give up their generous perks, only a few have proved willing to part with what are essentially tax-free handouts for travel and other privileges, according to an internal report from the Parliament's secretary general obtained by the International Herald Tribune. In another example of Parliament's excessive spending, costs of interpretation and translation in an expanded EU are spiraling out of control, according to a separate draft report from the legislature's budgetary control committee.
The committee said it is "very concerned" that nearly €26 million, or $31 million - 16 percent of the €163 million spent on interpretation - is used to hire translators who are on call or sitting idle. Before the last European Parliament elections, in June 2004, more than 200 candidates from Germany to Sweden pledged to eliminate travel-expense perks that have allowed Parliament members to earn generous and tax-free profits by claiming reimbursement for as much as 10 times the price of their airline tickets.
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