By Martin Banks - 1st February 2010
These figures are an outrage
Marta Andreasen
MEPs have reacted with fury to revelations of how parliament's budget was spent in 2008.
A report seen by this website shows that the assembly's MEPs and 7000-strong workforce took a total of 54,000 sick days during the year.
That works out at an average of about eight sick days per employee during 2008. The figure excludes time off taken for maternity leave.
The internal report also shows that €2.7m was spent renovating parliament's sports centre which is open to both MEPs and staff, and €300,000 on the annual Lux film prize.
It says that the costs of the new visitor centre have topped €15m, with €4.7m being spent in 2008 alone. An additional €8.8m was spent repairing the ceiling that collapsed in the Strasbourg parliament.
The report goes on to reveal that parliament's network of information offices costs about €4m to run every year. The most expensive is London, followed by Paris.
It also says parliament has a car pool of 17 cars available to MEPs, including BMWs and Mercedes, with CO2 emissions as high as 260 CO2 g/km.
This year, the parliament's budget will be €1.6bn.
Reaction to the revelations in the document was swift, with UK Tory MEP Roger Helmer saying, "On the face of it the number of sick days looks appallingly high although it would be worth comparing to, say, the public and private sector in the UK.
"I am particularly critical of the expensive cars parliament's runs. Parliament is constantly banging on about how we should all be cutting greenhouse gas emissions but it would be less hypocritical if the institution paid more attention to its own emissions."
He added, "I also think that spending so much renovating the sports centre was totally unnecessary."
Another British Tory deputy, Timothy Kirkhope, deputy leader of the ECR group, said, "I must say that 54,000 sick days does seem a lot and it is something we perhaps should be looking at."
Referring to the items of expenditure in parliament's 2008 budget, he said, "It is important that every item of spending is fully justified. This is especially important at a time of severe economic depression."
Marta Andreasen, a Ukip member, said, "These figures are an outrage, one might expect them from an industry like fishing, but not in the coddled world of the Eurocrats. The taxpayer is funding Euro-shirking, plain and simple."
The details come after last week's news that MEPs are set to have their assistant's allowance increased by €1500 per month.
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