Salary and Expenses - MEP Nick Griffin and MEP Nigel Farage TOTAL
Dear European Parliament,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:
I would like to know the following;
- Total expenses claimed by MEP Nigel Farage during his tenure
- Total Salary claimed by MEP Nigel Farage during his tenure
- Total expenses claimed by MEP Nick Griffin during his tenure
- Total Salary claimed by MEP Nick Griffin during his tenure
Yours faithfully,
Phil Mason
The European Parliament’s offices will be closed from 19 to 23 April
2019. Applications for access to documents will not be registered until 24
April 2019. The period within which a reply must be given to your
applications (15 working days, as laid down in Article 7(1) of Regulation
(EC) No 1049/2001) will therefore commence on that date.
Les bureaux du Parlement européen seront fermés du 19 au 23 avril 2019
inclus. Les demandes d'accès aux documents ne seront enregistrées qu'à
partir du 24 avril 2019.Par conséquent, le délai de 15 jours ouvrables
pour répondre à vos demandes (conformément à l’article 7.1 du Règlement
(CE) n° 1049/2001) courra à partir de cette même date.
Die Büros des Europäischen Parlaments bleiben vom 19. April bis zum
23. April 2019 geschlossen. Anträge auf Zugang zu Dokumenten können erst
ab dem 24. April 2019 registriert werden. Die Frist von 15 Werktagen zur
Beantwortung Ihrer Anträge (gemäß Artikel 7 Absatz 1 der Verordnung (EG)
Nr. 1039/2001) läuft daher erst ab diesem Datum.
Our ref.: A(2019)5133 - Acknowledgment of receipt
Dear Mr Mason,
The European Parliament hereby acknowledges receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered on 24 April 2019 under the reference A(2019)5133 (Parliament was closed from 19 to 23 April 2019).
All requests for public access to documents are treated in compliance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
In accordance with the above-mentioned Regulation, your application will be handled within 15 working days upon registration of your request.
The European Parliament reserves the right to ask for additional information regarding your identity in order to verify compliance with Regulation (UE) 2018/1725 and the European Parliament’s implementing measures.
Your attention is drawn to the fact that you have lodged your application via the AsktheEU.org website, which is a private website not officially related to the European Parliament. Therefore, the European Parliament cannot be held accountable for any technical issues or problems linked to the use of this system.
Kind regards,
TU
TRANSPARENCY UNIT
European Parliament
Directorate General for the Presidency
Directorate for Inter-Institutional Affairs
and Legislative Coordination
Public Register webpage
[email address]
Our ref.: A(2019)5133/en/jb
Dear Mr Mason,
This is a reply to your application A(2019)5133 for access, under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, to the total expenses and salaries claimed by Mr Nigel Farage, MEP, and Nick Griffin, MEP, during their tenure.
Salary
The monthly pre-tax salary of MEPs, under the single statute, is € 8.757,70 (as of July 2018). This salary comes from Parliament's budget. All MEPs pay EU tax and insurance contributions, after which the salary is € 6.824,85. In addition, most EU countries oblige their MEPs to pay an additional national tax to their home country. The final salary (salary after taxes) for an individual Member therefore depends on the taxation rules in the Member's home country. The MEPs' basic salary is set at 38.5% of the basic salary of a judge at the European Court of Justice, so MEPs do not, and cannot, decide on their own salary.
There are a few exceptions to the single statute: MEPs who held a mandate in Parliament before the 2009 elections could opt to keep the previous national system for salary (in which they were paid the same amount as national MPs), transitional allowance and pensions, for the entire duration of their membership of the European Parliament.
Expenses
MEPs are also entitled to the following:
1) Travel expenses: MEPs are entitled to the reimbursement of the expenses incurred for duty travel undertaken in connection with meetings of the European Parliament (plenary, committee and political group meetings) in Brussels or Strasbourg. MEPs may also be refunded for other travel outside their own Member State undertaken as part of their work, and be reimbursed for up to 24 return journeys within their own Member State.
2) Subsistence expenses: MEPs are entitled to a flat-rate allowance to cover accommodation and related costs for each day that they are present on official business. The allowance covers hotel bills, meals and all other expenses involved. The allowance is reduced by half, if the MEP misses more than half the roll-call votes on days when plenary votes are held, even if they are present.
3) General expenditure allowance: MEPs are entitled to a general expenditure allowance to cover expenditure such as office rent and management costs, telephone and postal charges, computers and telephones. The allowance is halved for Members who, without due justification, do not attend half the number of plenary sittings in one parliamentary year (September to August). The amount of the allowance is 4.513 EUR per month.
4) Assistance from personal staff: MEPs are entitled to assistance from personal staff, whom they may freely choose. They can make use of accredited parliamentary assistants (based in Brussels, Strasbourg or Luxembourg) and local assistants. The working conditions and job description of accredited parliamentary assistants are established by Council Regulation (EC) No 160/2009 of 23 February 2009 . The scale of their basic salary was updated in 2017 . Local assistants are persons who are to assist the Member in the Member State where he or she is elected and with whom the Member has concluded an employment or service contract in keeping with applicable national law. The employment and service contracts with local assistants are governed by national law and administrated by qualified paying agents established in a Member State.
Documents
Information which can be extracted from an electronic database through pre-programmed search tools must be regarded as an existing document, access to which may be requested under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
Total salaries, travel expenses and subsistence expenses paid to an MEP by the European Parliament for a given period can be extracted from databases through pre-programmed search tools, and access thereto may consequently be requested under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
However, the total amount of an MEP's parliamentary assistance allowance for a set period of time cannot be retrieved thanks to a standard query. Consequently, requests for access to a specific MEP's assistance allowance for a set period of time have to be considered as requests for non-existing documents and Parliament is under no obligation to accede to them.
Personal data
As the Court recently recalled and confirmed (see Case T-639/15 to T-666/15, Maria Psara and Others v Parliament), ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, and documents setting out information concerning the salaries and allowances of specific MEPs are subject to the legislation on the protection of personal data, namely Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.
Point b) of Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 provides that "personal data shall only be transmitted to recipients established in the Union other than Union institutions and bodies if [...] the recipient establishes that it is necessary to have the data transmitted for a specific purpose in the public interest and the controller, where there is any reason to assume that the data subject’s legitimate interests might be prejudiced, establishes that it is proportionate to transmit the personal data for that specific purpose after having demonstrably weighed the various competing interests".
Your current application A(2019)5133 does not set out why it would be necessary to transmit data on the total expenses and salaries claimed by Mr Nigel Farage, MEP, and Nick Griffin, MEP.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, if you wish to access to more details on Mr Farage and Mr Griffin's salaries and expenses than are provided in this reply, Parliament would invite you to file a new application setting out arguments in support of a transfer of the personal data at stake, and specifically on the necessity of such a transfer, as is required by point b) of Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.
Kind regards,
TU
TRANSPARENCY UNIT
European Parliament
Directorate General for the Presidency
Directorate for Inter-Institutional Affairs
and Legislative Coordination
Public Register webpage
[email address]