{"id":10042,"date":"2017-10-19T14:02:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T14:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/mep-expenses-should-be-kept-secret-to-avoid-pressure-from-media\/"},"modified":"2017-10-19T14:02:07","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T14:02:07","slug":"mep-expenses-should-be-kept-secret-to-avoid-pressure-from-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/en\/mep-expenses-should-be-kept-secret-to-avoid-pressure-from-media\/","title":{"rendered":"MEP expenses should be kept secret to avoid \u2018pressure\u2019 from media"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

LUXEMBOURG \u2014 If EU lawmakers were forced to declare how they spend their monthly expenses, they would be criticized so much that they could struggle to do their job, a lawyer representing the European Parliament said Thursday.<\/p>\n

She was speaking during a three-hour public hearing at the European Court of Justice on parliamentary expenses. A group of journalists brought a case to court after the Parliament refused to give them access to information on how MEPs spend public money. Last year, around \u20ac450 million was spent on MEPs\u2019 salaries, travel expenses and office costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everything was visible \u2026 it would impose a big pressure on [MEPs],\u201d said the lawyer representing the Parliament, later suggesting that \u201cif everything was under discussion by journalists \u2026 in a time where everything is discussed on Twitter,\u201d MEPs would in effect be censored and unable to exercise their \u201cfree mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was \u201ccompletely untrue\u201d to suggest MEPs\u2019 activities weren\u2019t already visible enough for the public to hold them accountable, the lawyer argued. She said the Parliament\u2019s website<\/a> allowed people to see what their representatives are doing in committees, saying this was evidence the institution was \u201cextremely transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMEPs need to be given a space to think,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The Parliament dismissed the journalists\u2019 request for information in 2015 in part because it would be \u201can excessive burden\u201d to provide them with the documents in question. The institution\u2019s lawyer confirmed during the hearing that the documents numbered in the millions and were in paper format \u2014 which was described by one judge as \u201cquite astonishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe filing system is what it is,\u201d said the lawyer.<\/p>\n

She said the Parliament estimated it had almost 900,000 individual pieces of paper for MEPs\u2019 travel expenses between 2011 and 2015 \u2014 kept in 48 cupboards filled \u201cfrom ceiling to floor.\u201d This, the lawyer said, was only the tip of the document iceberg.<\/p>\n

Speaking to POLITICO after the hearing, Anu\u0161ka Deli\u0107, a journalist who brought the case, said: \u201cI can\u2019t get over the shock of hearing this.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she pointed out that a global consortium of journalists, to which she belongs, had managed to sift through 11 million documents leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca \u2014 resulting in what became known as the Panama Papers scandal.<\/p>\n

The Parliament also said in some cases they simply didn\u2019t have the documents in question, in particular for the so-called General Expenditure Allowance [GEA] worth around \u20ac4,300 a month, which is usually paid directly into an MEP\u2019s bank account.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether this is correct or not correct, whether or not the GEA should be paid in a lump sum \u2026 we do not hold the documents,\u201d said the lawyer. The Parliament said it had internal controls in place to allow funds that were incorrectly spent to be recovered.<\/p>\n

The Parliament also said that giving access to the information would violate MEPs\u2019 privacy, a suggestion that Deli\u0107\u2019s lawyers rejected during the hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not demanding data that covers the private lives of MEPs but strictly their professional duties,\u201d said Deli\u0107.<\/p>\n

The Court did not give a date when it will rule in the case.<\/p>\n

Original Article<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n

Politico<\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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