A controversial pension fund for MEPs is causing new discussions. In Brussels, the Greens group in the European Parliament called on profiteers to waive their payment claims from the fund if possible. The background is the danger that the fund could become insolvent and that it would have to be topped up with taxpayers’ money.
According to a letter from the Secretary General of Parliament, Alessandro Chiocchetti, to the Bureau, around 310 million euros are missing. The letter is available from the German Press Agency.
What is meant is the so-called voluntary pension fund. Members of the European Parliament and Parliament paid into this until 2009 in order to receive an additional pension later. Criticism of the fund has repeatedly been raised in recent years.
Green MP Daniel Freund said that those who already have other public pension entitlements should not receive any money from this fund. “No more tax euros should flow into these additional pensions for lords, EU commissioners and well-provided politicians.”
More than 900 former and current MEPs are eligible
According to the Greens, Parliament should now officially propose that “all former MPs who will receive an adequate pension from another source voluntarily renounce their payment entitlements from the voluntary pension fund”. On Wednesday, Freund submitted a corresponding amendment, which the German Press Agency has received, to a report by the Parliament’s Budget Control Committee. The report is expected to be voted on next week.
In fact, the fund is running out of money. At the end of last year, he still had investments worth 50 to 55 million euros, as Chiocchetti writes. In the long term, however, 363 million euros would be needed to cover the claims of the MPs. The fund could therefore already go bankrupt at the end of 2024.
According to a report by the “Tagesspiegel” in cooperation with the journalist team “Investigate Europe”, more than 900 former and current MEPs are entitled to the additional payments. Among them are the designated ambassador in Moscow, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Brexit champion Nigel Farage and the right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen. They initially left a query from the dpa unanswered.
