International

On Wednesday the European Parliament will vote on next year’s EU budget. The report on which we will vote states that in order to stimulate economic growth we must not reduce this budget, but rather increase it by 4.2%. You might assume this to be just a bad joke, because this same parliament recently voted in favour of a package of measures designed to pressure national governments into imposing swingeing cuts in spending. So none of this makes any sense. The SP is at least consistent. We are for moderate and intelligent economies which do not harm the weakest in society, and this goes for the Netherlands as well as at the European level. That’s why I won’t be supporting this huge increase in the EU budget and will instead ask my fellow MEPs to set a good example and reduce their allowances for ‘general spending’ by 5%.

Euro-MPs already live in luxury. As well as an enormous salary and expenses, all MEPs receive moneys to cover general expenditure. From this you can buy useful things, such as office supplies, but so much money is involved that ever since first elected and thus for the third year in succession, I neither want nor am able to spend anywhere near the sums available. This year, just as in previous years, I have returned some €30.000 to the European Parliament’s coffers.

It is precisely in these difficult financial times that the EP should be setting a good example. That’s why, together with forty other MEPs, I have presented a formal proposal that the allowance for general spending be reduced by 5%. This is not without any chance of success, but we will have to wait in suspense until Wednesday to see whether it wins the required majority. Many Euro-MPs are full of the need for spending cuts at member state level, but when it comes to the European Union, and certainly when it comes to their own expenses, they become rather less enthusiastic.