The Sunday Times: Secret report reveals how MEPs make millions

A leakes internal report has revealed systematic abuses by Euro MPs of parliamentary allowances that enable them to pocket more than £1m in profits from a single five-year term, writes Jonathan Oliver in today's edition of "The Sunday Times".

The auditor’s confidential report, suppressed by the Brussels parliament, discloses the extraordinary frauds used by MEPs to siphon off staff allowances funded by taxpayers. A copy of the 92-page report, prepared by Robert Galvin, the parliament’s head of internal audit, has been seen by The Sunday Times.

The report was based on a representative sample of 167 payments — out of a total of 4,686 — made during October 2004.

New figures compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance reveal how MEPs can pocket more than £1m over five years by exploiting different allowances. The calculations were inspired by known abuses of the system, which Brussels insiders claim have been commonplace.

The European parliament has announced a number of reforms to the expenses rules which will come into force this summer. These include ensuring that MEPs’ staff are paid directly by the parliament rather than via the members’ own “service provider”. However, MEP Chris Davies said the reforms did not go far enough, insisting that many of the Galvin report’s recommendations had yet to be adopted.

For the full text of the publication click HERE - the section "EP - Analyses" on the website of the initiative "Now - interacting with the European Parliament!"