The European Parliament spent over £850,000 sending 50 MEPs for an eight-day trip to the Congo in 2010, according to a list of its most expensive foreign delegations.
In July, 13 of the ACP-EU MEPs travelled to the Seychelles for a five-day trip that cost the taxpayer an £4,374 per head in travel, hotel and 'logistics' bills MEPs were attending a meeting of the African-Caribbean Pacific and EU (ACP-EU) joint parliamentary assembly to discuss with MPs from the developing countries how to tackle poverty in the world's poorest regions.
At the November 2010 gathering in Kinshasa, MEPs racked up a bill of £17,067 per head – a sum that is 141 times the £121 that is the average annual income in Congo. The figures, revealed by The Daily Telegraph, were described by a Ukip MEP as “an affront to taxpayers”.
The same ACP-EU delegation of MEPs, a group of 64 this time, had previously gathered in Tenerife in January 2010. They ran up travel and hotel bills of £588,404, or £9,193 each, over the course of a week in the Spanish sunshine, according to the list revealed by The Daily Telegraph. A one week stay in a junior suite in London’s elite Ritz Hotel costs £3,928.
In July, 13 of the ACP-EU MEPs travelled to the Seychelles for a five-day trip that cost the taxpayer £4,374 per head in travel, hotel and “logistics” bills.
The costs of the first class flights and five star luxury hotels for the trips, totalling £230 million in 2010, have traditionally been shrouded in secrecy by an EU assembly that is wary of fuelling its “gravy train” image.
But following an investigation into spiralling costs by MEPs on the parliament’s budget committee, the EU assembly’s administration has compiled a list of the most expensive trips, breaking down costs for the first time.
The figures, seen by this newspaper, show the huge bills presented to taxpayers for keeping MEPs in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.
A delegation of four MEPs to Argentina in March 2010 cost £21,878 in daily bills for each MEP. Seven MEPs on the parliament’s trade committee managed to rack up travel, hotel and other bills of £5,384 each over four days in springtime Rome.
Marta Andreasen, a Ukip MEP and the European Commission’s former chief accountant before she was sacked by Lord Kinnock for whistle-blowing in 2004, described the costs as “astonishing” at a time when the EU was imposing austerity programmes on the eurozone.
”Even as the eurozone crisis was starting to bite hard in 2010, MEPs were rewarding themselves with self-serving and largely pointless delegation visits,” she said.
”These figures are an appalling abuse of public money. They should hang their heads in shame.”
A parliament spokesman insisted that the figures include “global costs” such as accompanying staff and the cost of hiring rooms for meetings.
”The why of these meetings is that relations between the EU and third countries by necessity have a parliamentary dimension,” she said.
”These meetings provide the only way in which elected representatives of, for example, the ACP former colonies can make their wishes heard as regards EU policies.”
Other Brussels institutions and officials are increasingly concerned that spending by MEPs is in danger of damaging the EU during a period when national public budgets are being cut and living standards have been hit by a recession generated by the eurozone.
Earlier this week, Janusz Lewandowski, the European budget commissioner, wrote a letter to the parliament asking MEPs to show the public that the EU was tightening its belt and reducing the costs of administration.
”It is of utmost importance to continue to demonstrate that the European institutions are acting responsibly in the light of the difficult economic and budgetary conditions and to send a corresponding signal to European public opinion,” he wrote.
The figures, seen by this newspaper, show the huge bills presented to taxpayers for keeping MEPs in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.
A delegation of four MEPs to Argentina in March 2010 cost £21,878 in daily bills for each MEP. Seven MEPs on the parliament’s trade committee managed to rack up travel, hotel and other bills of £5,384 each over four days in springtime Rome.
Marta Andreasen, a Ukip MEP and the European Commission’s former chief accountant before she was sacked by Lord Kinnock for whistle-blowing in 2004, described the costs as “astonishing” at a time when the EU was imposing austerity programmes on the eurozone.
”Even as the eurozone crisis was starting to bite hard in 2010, MEPs were rewarding themselves with self-serving and largely pointless delegation visits,” she said.
”These figures are an appalling abuse of public money. They should hang their heads in shame.”
A parliament spokesman insisted that the figures include “global costs” such as accompanying staff and the cost of hiring rooms for meetings.
”The why of these meetings is that relations between the EU and third countries by necessity have a parliamentary dimension,” she said.
”These meetings provide the only way in which elected representatives of, for example, the ACP former colonies can make their wishes heard as regards EU policies.”
Other Brussels institutions and officials are increasingly concerned that spending by MEPs is in danger of damaging the EU during a period when national public budgets are being cut and living standards have been hit by a recession generated by the eurozone.
Earlier this week, Janusz Lewandowski, the European budget commissioner, wrote a letter to the parliament asking MEPs to show the public that the EU was tightening its belt and reducing the costs of administration.
”It is of utmost importance to continue to demonstrate that the European institutions are acting responsibly in the light of the difficult economic and budgetary conditions and to send a corresponding signal to European public opinion,” he wrote.
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