Strasbourg, 15/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - Although the European Parliament seemed to have met all the demands of the Member States to allow final adoption of the statute under its legislature, new difficulties arose this week. Germany mainly but also Austria seem resolved to block the project once and for all.
On the basis of an opinion from the Council's legal department, which confirms that the part relating to fiscality must be adopted unanimously (when the rest of the project can be adopted by qualified majority), Germany develops an argument on the principle whereby Community budget resources cannot be subject to national taxation to block the project, which provides for exemption allowing States wishing to do so to guarantee, through an additional tax at national level, that their MEPs are subject to the same level of taxation as national MPs.
Austria, for its part, considers as excessive the gross pay granted to MEPs under the proposal. Amounting to EUR 8697 last December, this was automatically increased, through the effect of statutory increase for European officials (the level of remuneration is modelled on that of the judges at the Court of Justice) to the sum of EUR 9053. It is this amount, to which must be added various other indemnities, which has caused all the trouble from Berlin to Vienna. By way of comparison, national deputies earn EUR 7009 in Germany and 7500 in Austria. Fearing a press campaign on the eve of the electoral campaign for European elections, the two chancelleries are today willing to throw the baby out with the bath water despite the inconvenience of having no statute. Without a statute, the remuneration system for MEPs will remain opaque with the reimbursement of costs allowing MEPs to supplement their incomes under the pretext that their incomes differ considerably. Remuneration will continue to be equivalent to those of national deputies - hardly EUR 2075 for a Polish MP and 2618 for a Spanish MP.
The conference of the presidents of the political groups of the European Parliament noted the situation, on Thursday morning. EUROPE has reason to believe that German EPP representatives, Hans-Gert Pöttering (CDU) and PES Martin Schulz (SPD), felt it was necessary to finish this now and to reject the responsibility of the lack of a statute on the Council since the Parliament has done everything it could. The presidents of the Liberal Group, British Graham Watson, and the Greens, German Daniel Cohn-Bendit, on the other hand, insisted on the need to do everything possible to reach a result - even if this means accepting a cut in salary, Mr Cohn-Bendit said. The President of the European Parliament, Irish national Pat Cox, used these two speeches and the efforts made since 1998 with German Social Democrat rapporteur Willi Rothley to conclude that it was necessary to continue work until the very last moment - 26 January, the date set for the final vote at the Council of Ministers.