BRUSSELS — Days ahead of a summit meeting where leaders of the European Union’s 27 member states are to wrestle again with a proposed seven-year budget, a spokesman for the bloc’s executive body was forced to defend the salaries of some officials.
At a time when many European governments have been compelled to impose stringent budget cuts, the issue of salaries and perquisites for European Union officials has resonated. In November, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain called on officials in Brussels to share the pain that austerity measures have brought to millions of Europeans.
On Sunday, the German newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag stoked the controversy by comparing the salaries of some European officials to the compensation paid to Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Anthony Gravili, a spokesman for the European Commission, told a news conference on Monday that such figures were flawed.
“It’s a totally unfair comparison,” said Mr. Gravili, who offered a long rebuttal of the article without mentioning the newspaper by name. “No official earns more than Chancellor Merkel.”
Mr. Gravili criticized comparisons of Ms. Merkel’s monthly salary that exclude her pay as a member of the German Parliament and other allowances, with European Union salaries that include allowances and benefits. European Commission data show that the monthly base salary of the most senior bloc officials is 18,370 euros, or $24,830.
Ms. Merkel’s monthly base salary is 21,000 euros, Mr. Gravili said. Of that, 17,000 euros is her pay as chancellor, while 4,000 euros is her reduced salary as a member of the German Parliament, he added.
Once Ms. Merkel’s basic allowances as both chancellor and Parliament member are included, Mr. Gravili said, her monthly pay was about 25,000 euros.
European Union officials generally pay low taxes, but Mr. Gravili said he did not have the figures available to say whether this would raise the officials’ after-tax income above Ms. Merkel’s. Inge Grässle, a German member of the European Parliament and a member of the body’s budgetary control committee, said that the highest-paid European Union officials paid taxes equivalent to about 25 percent of their gross salary.
Germany contributes the most to the bloc’s budget, one that last year reached about 135 billion euros.
European Union officials receive steady criticism about waste and bloat, but only about 6 percent of all spending goes to the bloc’s administration, which employs 55,000 people, including 6,000 translators, most of them in Brussels.
European political leaders will gather in Brussels on Thursday to consider a budget proposal of roughly 1 trillion euros for 2014-2020. One proposal would trim 1 percent from the European Commission’s requested spending for administrative costs. Britain has argued for deeper cuts, saying that those costs, while small in comparison to the overall budget, are symbolically important.
Unlike European Union officials, the 27 members of the European Commission are political appointees. Their salaries are much closer to those of national leaders like Ms. Merkel, and in some cases may exceed them.
José Manuel Barroso, president of the commission, is paid a monthly salary of 25,351 euros, a residence allowance equal to 15 percent of that salary, and allowances for expenses like running a household and schooling for children. The seven vice presidents of the commission earn basic monthly salaries of 22,963 euros.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/business/global/eu-officials-salaries-draw-fire.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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