Information about my salary and budgets used for my work

Salary

As an MEP I, like other MEP’s, receive a monthly salary of 7.807,12 EUR. After community taxes as insurances, 6083,91 EUR are left.
On top of that, I receive daily allowances of 300 EUR for each day I’m working in the Parliament, assuming I remember to sign a list, which I forget every now and then. This is supposed to cover accommodation and food costs.

I use this money to cover the daily living expenses of my family of 2 persons, including a flat in Berlin (ca. 330 EUR) and one in Brussels (ca. 950EUR) and a lot of travel costs mainly for purposes of family reunification :-). Also, I use this money to pay accommodation in Strasbourg (ca. 300 EUR), donations to the Green Party (ca. 1500 EUR/month) and to the young greens as well as my party membership fee, along with everything else that one does with ones’ salary.

Expenses for personnel

I can make use of 17.500 EUR/month for paying salaries which I use for employing 2 assistants in Brussels, one in Halle/Berlin, a share of an employee’s salary in Leipzig, one intern in Brussels plus their respective travel costs as well as trainings. That money is pretty much used up by the end of the year.

Office costs
All members can spend 4000 EUR a month on their office costs, such as telephone costs (mine and the ones of my assistants), office equipment, computers, office material, etc.
For example, in 2009 we used the money for buying laptops and telephones, my phone costs of about 300 EUR per month, rent for the regional offices in Halle and Leipzig etc.

Political Budget
Each Member can spend 30.000 EUR a year on political activities, for example seminars, publications, hearings etc. This money has to be applied for to the administration and is very quickly spent.
In 2009, we used it, among others, for a presentation leaflet, a press breakfast, a conference on the Stockholm Programme and other similar purposes.

Travel costs
Each member can spend 1500 EUR per year on travel costs outside of our home country, on work related travel that is not covered by official EP delegations. In order to receive a reimbursement, we have to prove that we travelled for the purpose of speaking at a public event or similar. This money runs out fairly quickly as well.
Examples from 2009: participation in a congress of the Turkish Greens in Istanbul, participation in a summer camp by the Cooperation and Development Network in Georgia and many other purposes.

Information about my travels and the CO2-emissions caused by them can be found under the menu point “flights”.