Transparency (Diana Wallis MEP)

Declaration of Financial Interests

Salary and Pension, what are MEPs paid?

The monthly pre-tax salary of all MEPs from July 2009 is EUR 7,665, which is the equivalent of an annual salary of EUR 91,980. The cost is met from the European Parliament's budget and is subject to an EU tax and accident insurance contribution, after which the monthly salary is EUR 5,963. Diana pays additional tax and National Insurance contributions so that she pays contributions on the same basis as those she represents. Those additional payments amount to something in the region of £800 to £1,000 a month. The gross level of MEPs' salaries is calculated as 38.5% of the basic salary of a judge at the European Court of Justice.

In 2008, Diana Wallis' salary was £63,291 per year. This was the same as that of a British MP and subject to the same British tax rules.

These rules changed in July 2009, when the new Statute for EP Members entered into force.

Read the Statute for Members of the European Parliament.

House of Commons official guide to Members' pay.

Prior to July 2009 MEPs were paid at a rate equivalent to that received by national MPs in the country they represent.This resulted in huge discrepancies between MEPs, especially say between those from Poland at the extreme bottom end and Italy where Members' pay was almost the equivalent of £100,000 per annum. Diana was instrumental in the move to reform this, as an active member of the Working Party on the Members' Statute, set up to create a more transparent system with equal salaries for all MEPs. As Vice President responsible for Transparency, Diana is campaigning for continued reforms, such as providing more detailed information about MEP attendance figures. At the time when the new equal salary arrangement was voted upon it would have represented a decrease in wages for UK MEPs. However, changes in the exchange rate mean that this is not the case at present and the situation is accordingly variable in either direction.

Before entering the Parliament, Diana Wallis was a senior solicitor with more than 15 years' experience in this profession. The current average starting salary for solicitors in private practice is £42000 (source: Law Society 2007 fact sheet).

Basic pension arrangements for British MEPs and MPs are identical. Diana Wallis is not and has never been a member of the European Parliament's additional Voluntary Pension Scheme.

Expenses paid for by the European Parliament

MEP's expenses are paid for directly by the European Parliament. The European Parliament's total budget represents only 1% of all EU expenditure. Some 25% of that 1% (or 0.25% of the total EU budget) is allocated to MEPs expenditure at present. Details of Diana's expenses and allowances can be found below.

Parliamentary activity

Diana's office visitor logbook 2010

Consult Diana's visitor logbook for January and February 2010.

Consult Diana's visitor logbook for March and April 2010 .

An independent summary of Diana's political activity, together with details of her voting record, can be found at votewatch.eu.

Read Diana's profile on www.votewatch.eu.

Link to Diana's official MEP page on Europarl website.

Access to Documents

Article 1 of the EU Treaty states that "decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen." This is supplemented by a number of provisions, including Article 25(1) of the EC Treaty which ensures that "any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have a right of access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents", subject to certain defined exceptions. In 2001, the Parliament and Council adopted a Regulation which sets out the right of access in more details. This Regulation is currently undergoing a review process following the publication of a Green Paper by the Commission.

On 2 October 2007, Diana Wallis chaired, as Vice President responsible, a meeting of the interinstitutional committee on access to documents set up under Article 15 of Regulation 1049/2001. This was the first meeting of the committee in three years.

Read Regulation 1049/2001 regulating the right of access to documents.

Read the Commission's Green Paper on Public Access to Documents.

Read the Commission's recast proposal for Regulation 1049.

List of documents related to a hearing in the LIBE Committee on 2 June 2008.

Search for a document in the European Parliament's official register.

Search for a document in the Commission's official register.

Search for a document in the Council's official register.

Transparency and Lobbying in the European Institutions

The Commission's register was opened on 23 June 2008. As of April 2009, 1334 organisations have registered with the Commission, providing a certain amount of financial disclosure.

On 22 April 2009, Diana Wallis, together with Jo Leinen MEP and Ingo Friedrich MEP, met Commissioner Siim Kallas with a mandate to reach a first agreement on the creation of a common register for interest representatives. The group agreed to create a common register, initially on a non-mandatory basis, and building on the results of the review of the Commission's existing register to take place in June 2009. The group agreed guidelines for this future common register and a draft common code of conduct. Pending this "one-stop-shop", the two institutions launched a common web-page today for accessing the existing registers.

In welcoming the agreement, Diana Wallis commented "the new webpage we are launching today, in advance of the elections, will give citizens a more comprehensive insight into who is seeking to influence decision-making at EU level. The approval of a revised code of conduct for lobbyists and the guidelines for our future common register are a positive outcome for the transparency of the lawmaking process at EU level. I look forward, as coordinator of the current EP delegation having negotiated with the Commission, to a final agreement early in the life of the new Parliament, and call on the incoming Swedish Presidency to take this issue up on behalf of the Council".

Joint Statement and draft joint Code of Conduct agreed on 22 April 2009.

Joint portal leading the Commission and the Parliament's existing registers.

Read Diana's draft Opinion on Lobbying.

Read the Commission's follow-up communication on the European Transparency Initiative.

Read the Commission's Green Paper on a European Transparency Initiative.

Historical Archives

Click here to access Diana's page on the opening of Parliament's archives.

Contact details for the Parliament's Archives and Documentation Center (Luxembourg).

Correlation Tables

Diana Wallis has long fought for "correlation tables". These should be sent by Member States when transposing Community directives, so as to ensure transparency and to make the Commission's watchdog task possible. So far, such clauses are systematically deleted at the request of the Council during the codecision procedure. It is however noteworthy that the Environmental Crime Directive, agreed in first reading last month, contains an obligation to produce correlation tables (see Article 9(2) : "Member States shall communicate to the Commission the text of the main provisions of national law which they adopt in the field covered by this Directive and a correlation table between those provisions and this Directive").

Click here to see Parliament's first reading of the Environmental Crime Directive.

ALDE Transparency Campaign.

Citizens' Summaries

Following several opinions and reports drafted by Diana and approved by the Parliament, Commissioner Wallstrom committed the Commission to implement such tables. The matter is largely unresolved, although certain parts of the Commission produce summaries (although not forming part of legislation).

One of the recommendations of the Equitable Life Inquiry report (adopted by the European Parliament on 19 June 2007) reads:

"The committee stresses the importance of improving citizens' understanding of EC legislation and therefore calls for the introduction in all legislative proposals of executive or citizens' summaries, as used in some Member States1, which, although devoid of any legal effects, would form part of the act itself and constitute a non-technical explanation destined to citizens and other interested parties (...)."

26 June: Read the Commission's citizens' summary on the European Private Company Statute.

Read a recent document entitled "Citizens' Summary" released by DG Competition .

Printed and hosted by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY.
Published and promoted by Diana Wallis MEP, PO Box 176, BROUGH, East Yorkshire, HU15 1UX.
The views expressed are those of the party, not of the service provider.