New figures show that 45 percent of lawmakers
in the European Parliament earn millions over and above their salaries
from external activities, despite efforts to crack down of internal
lobbying by MEPs.
In an effort to become more transparent and crack down on suggestions that lawmakers were being paid for lobbying —
five years after the ‘Cash for Amendments’ scandal, in which reporters
revealed three MEPs had accepted money for submitting amendments to EU
legislation — the EU introduced a new code of conduct.Under it — and
since only 2012 — the lawmakers have to register declarations of their
financial interests to reveal their outside interests and incomes.
However, new figures from Transparency International show that the code
of practice still masks whether or not the “outside interests” amount
to lobbying.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/03/23/45-percent-of-european-lawmakers-earn-millions-in-outside-activities/
“Four years after its introduction, the code
of conduct has failed to address this problem. We are still missing a
robust set of rules and adequate supervision and enforcement mechanisms,
which Transparency International EU called for back in 2011,” it said.
Lobbying, Lawyers and Consultants
The latest numbers from EU Integrity Watch,
Transparency International EU’s online portal for analyzing the
outside activities of MEPs, indicates that 334 or 45 percent of MEPs
have paid-for outside activities. Combined they earn between US$6 and
US$16 million a year on top of their salaries, which they receive “in
return for denying themselves a private career.” 62 MEPs have
outside incomes exceeding an average wage across the EU of US$19,706 per
year.Lobbying, Lawyers and Consultants
The campaign group says that for the majority
of these cases the information provided in the financial declarations is
poor and it is often impossible to rule out conflict of interests.
Dozens of MEPs simply declare to work as “lawyers”, “consultants” or
to pursue “individual economic activities.”
Others declare activities that go under an abbreviation such as
“ASDCAM”, where even a more detailed online search does not yield any
results. The current set up does not even rule out MEPs working
as lobbyists on top of their political mandate.http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/03/23/45-percent-of-european-lawmakers-earn-millions-in-outside-activities/
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