128,959 of 150,000 signatures

Members of the European Parliament

Petition text

As our elected representatives, funded by our taxes, all your expenses should be fully transparent and accountable. We call on you to establish permanent parliamentary financial controls, make your spending transparent and publish all expenditure and audit data.

Why is this important?

All Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) receive an *extra* €4,342 a month that goes straight to their bank account of choice. On the record, there are no receipts for how this money is spent. No financial spot checks. No audits. Nothing. It’s possibly the only EU budget line that has absolutely no financial controls.

This allowance is meant for expenses related to their work as a MEP, such as rental costs for constituency office space, phone bills, or office supplies. [1] But no-one checks how they spend it.

Thankfully there's an easy, permanent fix. At the EP's administrative meeting next week [2], the MEPs could start the process to introduce an extra financial control in order to make these expenses transparent to the public. And if they kick this off now, we could have proper financial controls on these expenses by the new year.

We are not the only ones who believe there should be greater transparency. Some MEPs know just how risky this black hole of public spending is and for years they've filed receipts for these expenses without even being asked. [3]

Together we can build a huge petition to act as a wake-up call to the rest of the European Parliament.If you agree we should know where this money is spent, please sign the petition demanding transparency on all MEP expenses.

References

[1] https://transparency.eu/bluebells/

[2] European Parliament Bureau Meeting, Strasbourg 23/10/2017

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/meetings-search.html?localisation=ALL&body=OD&subBody=BURO&term=LONG_TERM

[3] Published accounts include UK representatives, for example Conservatives or Labour MEPs and individual MEPs from other national political parties, like Benedek Jávor and Roberta Metsola

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