Total amount paid to Members of the European Parliament for expenses in financial year 2018/19
Dear European Court of Auditors,
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:
The total amount paid to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for all allowable expenses in financial year 2018/19 or, if not yet available the same information from financial year 2017/18.
The information required is the sum total of all MEPs expenses included in the following categories:
Office costs
Staff costs
Daily Attendance Allowance
Travel Allowance
Personal Travel Allowance
I require one total expenses figure in Euro's for the financial year 2018/19.
I do not require individual figures for each category unless you are willing to provide this.
I do not require any identifiable information that could link to specific persons.
Yours faithfully,
Richard Hernaman
Dear Mr Hernaman,
Thank you for contacting the European Court of Auditors (ECA).
As a foreword, please note that your request for access to documents has
been processed in accordance with Article 6 of [1]Decision No 12/2005 of
the Court of Auditors regarding public access to Court documents (as
amended by Court Decision No 14/2009) (altogether, "the Court's
Decision"). Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European
Parliament, Council and Commission documents is not applicable to our
institution.
We would like to inform you that our institution is responsible for
auditing the EU’s finances. Pursuant to [2]Article 287 of the Treaty on
the Functioning of the European Union, we examine the legality and
regularity of the EU’s revenue and expenditure and the soundness of its
financial management, and thereby act as the guardians of the EU’s
finances.
In our role of independent external auditor of the EU budget, we also
audit the EU Institutions and other bodies, including the European
Parliament, by examining the effectiveness of their internal control
procedures and testing randomly selected financial operations. We present
the results of our work in our [3]annual report in the chapter on
Administration.
In fact, our auditors work on a random sample of transactions, on the
basis of supporting documents provided by the institution concerned by the
audit. However, even in the event that our institution had all the
documents requested, in accordance with Article 4.5 of its Decision No
12/2005 regarding public access to ECA documents (as amended by ECA
Decision No 14-2009) we not be allowed to disclose it to third parties, as
the ECA is not the author. When the ECA is requested access to a document
of which it is not the author, we “shall confirm receipt of the
application and supply the name of the person, institution or body to whom
the application must be addressed.”
Therefore, if you wish to request access to the documents in question, you
may consider contacting either the European Parliament’s [4]Citizens'
Enquiries Unit (Ask EP), which provides information about the European
Parliament, its activities, powers and organization, or the European
Parliament’s [5]Public Register of Documents. Please be aware, though,
that the document could be subject to confidentiality restrictions.
Please note that in accordance with Article 7 of the Court’s Decision, you
can address a request for reconsideration to the ECA’s President, within
15 working days of receiving the ECA’s reply.
Kind regards,
ECA-INFO
[6]https://www.eca.europa.eu/PublishingImag...
[7]https://www.eca.europa.eu/PublishingImag... ECA-INFO
Information Desk
12, rue Alcide
De Gasperi -
L-1615
Luxembourg
[8]eca.europa.eu
[9]https://www.eca.europa.eu/PublishingImag... Please
consider the environment before printing this email
[10]https://www.eca.europa.eu/PublishingImag...
