MEPs: Do they work for you
SENDING clapped-out politicians to laze around the bars of Brussels and Strasbourg did not help the European Parliament’s image in Ireland.
Those days are past, but MEPs have been struggling to get voters to recognise their new powerful roles, and adjust their expectations and demands.
Achievements such as cutting the price of roaming charges for mobile phones and getting compensation for delayed or cancelled flights are easy to forget. However, the past five years have been about more — and the next five promise to be even more vital to the interests of citizens in the EU’s 28 states. With just 11 Irish MEPs in a parliament of 751, each one needs to count both individually and as members of the political groups and of the parliament as a whole.
Up to now, members of the parliament have tended to split along political rather than national lines. This has been true even among the Irish MEPs where, for example, on the Financial Transaction Tax which the Government is against, only two voted against, with four for and four abstaining. So voters need to consider the political colour of the candidates — there are big differences between them in their approach to economics, social issues, and the environment.
The majority of Irish MEPs voted against extending paid maternity leave for mothers from 14 to 20 weeks. The centre-right European People’s Party, to which Fine Gael belongs, argued it would be too costly for business. However, others, including the Socialists, to which the Labour party belongs, argued it was a long-term investment.
On the other hand, all but one MEP voted in favour of eurobonds — the eurozone uniting to raise funds for governments on the markets and so lowering the cost of all. Despite Germany — the major donor country — being against it, the majority of MEPs were also in favour.
For many Irish voters, it’s a matter of sticking with the family’s favourite or giving the Government a kick in the hope of making them feel a little of your suffering. While voters across the EU share this sentiment, their political choices are more in line with the way politics works in the European Parliament, where the eight outgoing parties are all various shades of the spectrum from ‘left’ to ‘right’.
Ireland, on the other hand, has two centre-right main parties, with Labour tinged with ‘left’ from time to time, and Sinn Féin struggling with EU scepticism.
Usually voters are more focused on domestic rather than European issues, but this time almost all issues are both domestic and EU — from austerity to employment and jobs, growing inequality, taxation of corporations, and financial transactions.
No vote will influence water charges and property tax at EU level and every country has such taxes. But the other issues can all be influenced by MEPs. The austerity policies will be played out every year as the EU institutions increasingly influence national budgets with their new powers of oversight, recommendations, and sanctions over national governments.
Workers’ rights and the quality of jobs will also be directly affected by policies that continue to develop at EU level, while employment will be affected by a large number of issues in which the European Parliament will have a direct say.
Laws such as the posted workers directive which will decide the rights and ability of workers to be contracted to jobs in member states will be decided by the next Parliament. Whether they will have the same safeguards as local workers or be a source of cheap labour is an on-going issue.
The MEPs must also approve any trade agreement with the US currently being negotiated by the EU that could have serious implications for both exports and imports.
Major projects such as expanding the single market for services, for instance, and eliminating the difficulties that have prevented this happening so far will involve the Parliament. Changes to the way companies are taxed is, in theory, solely a national issue, but with the G7-20, the OECD, and the EU working on it, every country will adapt under the pressure.
These elections will set or reset how the EU is governed, with a fight between the Parliament and the European Council representing member states on who decides the president of the European Commission. This battle, and its outcome, will have interesting implications for whether or not the ruler will be the strongest prime minister of the strongest country — bringing other prime ministers with him or her and thus weakening the Commission and the Parliament.
Simon Hix of the London School of Economics and the founder of www.votewatch.eu says the party-political make-up of the next Parliament will have a significant impact on the direction of the EU policy agenda for the next five years and on who becomes the next Commission president.
The head of each political group in the parliament meets to organise the business of the body: Each is allocated a number of seats on committees according to the percentage vote they received in the elections; and they divide out the chairs and vice chairs of the all important committees.
These will be filled at the new Parliament’s first sitting on July 1-3 in Strasbourg. Each political group in the parliament is an offshoot of pan-EU parties to which national parties are affiliated. They hold regular meetings and are an important platform for national politicians, including prime ministers, to form alliances.
While the Germans and French invariably have the largest number of MEPs in the main political groups, MEPs from smaller countries can end up playing big roles.
Ireland ended up drafting the third-highest number of reports on co-decision legislation per MEP in the out-going parliament, just slightly behind Germany and Portugal. Co-decision refers to those areas where the parliament has an equal say to the national governments represented by the Council.
They fared less well in the number of opinions drafted — these are produced by one committee to assist another committee in producing reports.
Every MEP has an opportunity to produce amendments to proposals; argue for them at committee level; and try to win support for them at the monthly voting session in Strasbourg. These reflect the amount of contact MEPs have with civil society and ranges from mega-lobbying firms to small NGOs or local communities. Irish MEPs came middle of the league in the average number of amendments proposed at committee stage.
Ireland was in the top three when it came to asking questions in Parliament — the other two were also crisis-hit countries, Portugal and Greece.
The Parliament provides funding for each MEP to employ assistants — both in Brussels and in their home base, where they also fund office expenses. However not all MEPs avail of this, with some having no Brussels-based assistants or relying on students, or on support from their political group. In many ways, good assistants can be key to the role an MEP plays.
For instance, they can represent their MEP at important negotiating meetings, such as those between the parliament, council and commission trying to reach agreement on the EU’s budget or legislation.
* Salary paid by the EU is €8.020.53 monthly before tax or, after EU tax and accident insurance, €6.250.37. Member states can also tax the salary.
* Travel costs to and from Brussels/Strasbourg, plus a maximum of €4,243 a year for travel to official events abroad.
* Daily allowance of €304 to cover accommodation and meals while in Strasbourg/Brussels.
* General expenditure allowance of €4,299 to cover office costs.
* A maximum of €21,209 a month per MEP for accredited assistants in Brussels who are paid directly by the Parliament and in member states through agents to ensure proper tax and social security arrangements.
* In general, MEPs cannot have close relatives on their staff, but those who had before 2009 can continue to do so.
* Retired MEPs are entitled to a pension paid by the EU from 63 years of age equal to 3.5% of salary for each full year’s service, to a maximum of 70% of salary. That’s about €1,300 monthly for every five-year term they served.
The manifestos of the various candidates and the political parties are quite “motherhood and apple pie” — who could be against them? They are short on detail and on overall policy principles and not all are applicable to the role of the MEP. Some of the issues candidates should be pressed on include the following:
* Getting our money back. Everyone promises to push for Ireland to recoup the funds it spent repaying the speculators in our banking debacle, but nobody has come up with any clever plan on just how this might be achieved.
* Financial Transaction Tax.Do they believe hedge funds and derivative trading should be taxed as well as the share trading that the Government currently taxes?
* Climate change and energy. What do they know of Ireland’s methane gas emitting cattle and how do they propose getting over this and signing up to carbon gas emissions and alternative fuels?
* Firms’ tax affairs.There’s lots of commitment to the EU being a beacon of democracy and hope in less-developed countries — but will they support European firms in these places making public exactly where their money and taxes are going?
* Poverty and growing inequality. Will MEPs fight for these to be included in the real list of issues to be addressed in national budgets when they are evaluated by the EU — and not just an after-thought?
* Where do they stand on the Commission’s Investing in Children? And have they read the EU’s Europe 2020 strategy?
* To ease the rate at which Ireland must cut back spending on health, education etc, should money spent on growth and investment be taken out of the deficit equation when calculating whether we have hit the 3% of GDP deficit and eventually the ‘break even’ point?
* Equality. They all want to push the EU to fight for better gender equality, but the national record is woeful. Not all MEPs supported the EU proposal to push for greater female representation on public company boards.
* Where do they stand on the issue of extending paid maternity leave? The majority of Irish MEPs voted against this last year.
* They support the Irish language, but will they go for full status for Irish next year? The EU pays for the translation and interpretation but very few MEPs and fewer ministers use Irish at their meetings. What will change?
* TTIP — the trade agreement with the US. Big parties are in favour of it but how will they protect the country’s food and agriculture and other exports?
* None say where they stand on the system that allows businesses to challenge national laws if they are contrary to their interests in special trade courts.
* And finally, who are you electing? Last term, a quarter of the elected MEPs were replaced by their nominees — there are no by-elections for parliament jobs mid-term. So do they intend to stay the course, or resign and run for the Dáil in two years’ time, and who will take their place?
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