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In the next few weeks we'll be voting on the European Parliament's financial accounts, among those of other EU institutions. This might appear to be somewhat dry fare but read through the report on the EP and you'll occasionally come across something a bit spicy. The German Christian Democrat rapporteur believes that the cuts in spending have been a success. As far as the SP's concerned, however, there are still plenty of possibilities for further belt-tightening. The lives of Euro-MPs aren't really all that poor.

In the report it states that it is hard to understand why the coffee service during meetings has been abolished and that the supply of complimentary mineral water is also under threat. The Secretary General of the Parliament has already promised that the mineral water will be retained. Fortunate that, because the rapporteur had become quite agitated by this matter and you don’t want to put the life of a fellow MEP at risk. Why we have to work with bottled mineral water is, however, no clearer after this discussion.

Foto: European Parliament / A colleague from the SP’s Spanish sister party Podemos leaves the chauffeur-driven car laid on by the EP in the car park

The biggest savings could be made by reducing the reimbursements against expenses which the MEPs receive. I’ve written about this many times, but it remains taboo. The Secretary General has calculated that it would cost tens of millions per annum to monitor the spending of Euro-MPs reimbursed from their general expenses. In response I proposed, along with Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, a fellow MEP from the Dutch centrist party D66, that spot checks be carried out. To date we have received no reaction to this. There will be honest MEPs who use the reimbursements to cover matters necessary to run their office and fund their activities in the Parliament, but personally I have an annual €30,000 surplus which I of course return. If you’ve nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear from spot checks.

When it comes to the EP's fleet of cars, we have another fight on our hands. The Parliament's praesidium has just decided to take on its own chauffeurs, rather than relying on externally provided services. Their argument is that MEPs often have secret documents with them. In which case it's better to have a reliable chauffeur in the Parliament's own employ who won't leak information to outsiders. Nonsense of course, because hardly any secret documents circulate in the EP, and when they are available you have to consult them behind closed doors and certainly not carry them out of the building. The real reason is, in my view, to ensure that the fleet of cars continues to exist for many years to come. The SP is in favour of supplying services in-house, as some years ago was done with security guards as well. But in the case of the Parliament cars, surely MEPs can simply take a taxi if cheaper forms of public transport aren't on hand. They can then easily pay for these from their general expenses, which already provide for such.

Those are just a few examples of the things you come A colleague from the SP’s Spanish sister party Podemos leaves the chauffeur-driven car laid on by the EP in the car parkacross in the financial accounts. Happily, in the Budgetary Control Committee, there are a lot of critical MEPs, so I've been able to put a large number of proposed amendments with support from others. I’m really hoping that we can further reduce this kind of laundering. MEPs aren’t, as it happens, all that poor at all.