Salary

As an Member of the European Parliament I receive a monthly salary of 10,075.18€. After deduction of the EU community tax and accident insurance 7,853.89€ remain to spare.

In addition, I receive daily allowances of 350 EUR per day I am working in the Parliament. This is supposed to cover additional costs of accommodation and meals during the stay in Brussels and Strasbourg.

Expenses for Personnel

I have a monthly staff budget of 28,696€. This money is spent on the salaries and social insurance contributions of my five assistants, three of whom work in Brussels and one each in Halle and Potsdam. Also interns are paid out of this budget line. In addition, this budget covers the costs of the business trips of my staff to Brussels and Strasbourg, as well as their trainings. Since I am paying my employees and interns fair wages, almost nothing of this budget line remains unused at the end of the year. Any surplus is returned to Parliament's administration at the end of the year.

Office Costs

MEPs receive an average of 4,778€ per month to cover their general expenses. This includes in my case, for example, the rent for the European offices in Halle and Potsdam, office supplies, technical equipment (eg: laptops), postage costs and much more.

We Greens have often made it clear that the use of the general expenditure allowance is not transparent enough. That is why we have repeatedly supported motions calling for a revision of the regulations. However, since there has been no proposal to revise these regulations so far, the Greens/EFA have made a voluntary commitment for the future, to deal transparently with the money from the general allowance budget line, which will take effect from July 1, 2017.

You can access the self-commitment here (in English).

Here I present the purposes for which my office spent the general expense allowance in 2023. The total budget for 2023 was 105,172.43€. This was made up of 12 monthly payments (January - December) of 4,778€ per month. Added up to these there was a carry over from 2022 about 43,050.48€ and 785.95€ of refunds.

Of this, 73,977.67€ was spent and 31,194.76€ was carried forward into the 2024 budget.

Funds for public relations work

In 2023, there was a budget of 48,550€ that Members of Parliament can apply to use for their political work, e.g. in the form of events and publications. In each individual case, it is reviewed whether the event, flyer or giveaway complies with the guidelines for the allocation of the budget.

In 2023, I paid for the following items from this budget, among others: the animal protection conference Greens4Animals, various plastic-free giveaways, the organisation of an exhibition in the EU Parliament in Strasbourg on Human Rights in Mexico.