Numerous newly elected MEPs are earning lots of money on the side, new research has shown.
Despite being paid on average around €120,000 per year, one in three representatives in the European Parliament also enjoy significant other incomes.
Dutch radio station BNR looked into the financial activities of the 362 MEPs who are required by European regulation on transparency to publicly report additional positions and earnings.
Its study of MEPs’ statements of private interests published on September 13 and which can be found under the label “declarations” for each, BNR found some made a large amount of extra money.
BNR noted that, unlike some other parliaments, such side earnings were unlimited.
Leading the pack on extra-parliamentary income was the Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea. Aside from being MEP, he is also a lawyer, law professor, insolvency practitioner and an author of books.
All these activities earn him some €650,000 annually.
Rob van Eijbergen, professor of organisational integrity at the Dutch University of Humanistic Studies, called the amount “outrageous”.
Other top earners were the Italian General turned-politician Roberto Vannacci. His 2023 book l Mondo al Contrario (The World in Reverse), which tackles progressivism and “wokery”, is a bestseller, earning him an extra €200,000 a year.
Daniel Obajtek, hailing from Poland, earns €180,000 extra thanks to being the director of construction firm Bayer Construct.
Laurent Castillo, from France, earns €128,000 additional income for being a professor and hospital doctor and an extra €103,000 on his shares in a French company.
A lot of extra income is not registered, BNR noted, because outside earnings under €5,000 per year do not need to be reported and not all MEPs make their earnings public.
In the Netherlands, members of the House of Representatives have their salaries reduced if their additional income exceeds 14 per cent of their base salary (compensation), BNR said.
The radio channel queried how good a job as representatives those people can do when having to focus on other, often better-paying positions.
Such rules do not exist on the European level or in many other countries.
Organisations such as Transparency International have said they supported salary caps and the maintenance of “ethical standards”.
“Such restrictions are necessary to prevent abuses, but they are no substitute for ethical awareness among politicians,” Transparency International director Lousewies van der Laan told BNR.
“We focus primarily on the role of political parties: they select candidates and, by endorsing them with their party name, essentially give them a seal of approval.”
MEPs from the previous European Parliament legislature apparently did better than the current batch.
Lithuanian lawmaker Viktor Uspaskich earned some €3 million extra annually via a real estate venture.
During the legislation before that, arch Euro federalist Guy Verhofstadt earned between €920,000 and €1.42 million, in addition to the €13,000 gross monthly salary he already received.
He pulled in his additional income for being a director of Sofina and Theodorus III, the fund of the Free University of Brussels, which is dedicated to spin-off and start-up companies. Verhofstadt also gave well-paid public speeches and together that gave him the third spot on the top outside income list.
Renato Soru and Antanas Guoga narrowly beat him by a few hundred thousand euros, according to Transparency International.
