By Mary Ellen Synon
10 August 2012
I will just refresh your memory before giving details of the attack the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom plans on the bloated pay levels at the European Commission.
I can tell you already that Herman Van Rompuy, the unelected, eurofanatic president of the European Council, isn't going to like it.
Here is part of what I wrote in the blog last September 23, after staff at the European Commission threatened to strike if they were forced to work a full 40 hour week:
'...I’m only amazed that the British taxpayers, who are the second-biggest contributors to the cost of keeping the eurocrats in their fabulous pay and perks, are surprised. Have the British not been paying attention to the years of reports on what an utterly-protected, highly-paid life these people lead?
The Mail for years has listed the perks. They include 42 days a year holiday, plus another 24 days off if the eurocrat does some extra flexitime shifts.
Any eurocrat in Brussels who is not a native of Belgium can get an expat allowance of an extra 16 percent of salary, and for his entire working life.
Then there are all the lush pensions, the free air travel at Christmas, the free meals, the school fees paid for the children of eurocrats. And on it goes...'
Of all the insincere complaining David Cameron makes about the EU, he and his fellow Tories say nothing about the bloated, untouchable earnings of the Brussels Mandarin class. Maybe their history of bent expenses keeps the Conservatives quiet. But that discretion is as fake as Cameron's 'euroscepticism.' What the eurocrats suck up from the taxpayers of the EU countries is beyond anything the most greedy Westminster MP could claim.
So now Geert Wilders, heading into an election next month as leader of the third largest party in The Netherlands -- the party which wants The Netherlands out of the single currency -- has set up a website on which the Dutch people, and anyone else, can express their objections to the salaries the eurocrats are paid.
Some specifics, as listed by Wilders on his website stopeuprofiteers.com. (I've converted the euro sums into sterling).
A European Commissioner earns £21,490 a month.
Newly-appointed young EU civil servants receive £3,677 a month, though as Wilders points out: 'their net salary is higher than their gross salary thanks to all the generous perks.'
A member of the European Parliament gets a total of £10,617 a month, and Wilders adds: 'It is very shocking that a large number of MEPs earn additional incomes' -- a recent report on Flemish television gave £78,000 as an example of extra earnings.
Results from the website will be presented to Van Rompuy before the next European Council meeting -- the so-called 'summit' -- on October 18.
Not, of course, that the unelected Van Rompuy or any of the other unelected euro-elite care at all what the taxpayers of the EU think. Still, it's worth it if only for the embarrassment Wilders can cause by pointing out how much the eurocrats earn at the same time they inflict fiscal misery on the suffering eurozone countries of the Med...something for the 17m unemployed workers in the eurozone to think about.
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From the comments section:
They could also mention the obscene amounts of money paid for the olympics, and the current promise of still paying. Foreign aid could get a mention too. If our government looked after itself first, rather than looking after mutlitudes of others, we wouldn't be in a recession.
