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MaltaToday’s article entitled ‘Malta MEPs defend their 40K’ (9 April, 2005) is misleading on more than one count and the record needs to be set straight.
(a) You claim that we defend our earnings of ‘40K’. We would have been happy to do so. But only if it was true. In our response to questions by your journalist, we made it clear that his statements on our earnings were incorrect. However, he chose to misrepresent our response.
(b) You claim that we expressed disdain at having our earnings publicised. This statement is not just false but also slanderous. MEP salaries and allowances have long been public and your article made no discovery. So we could hardly protest against the publication of something that was already public and available for everyone to see. What we objected to was that you invented earnings that we do not earn.
(c) We repeat that your calculation of our earnings is false because it is based on the wrong assumption that we turn our allowances into earnings by pocketing them instead of using them for their real purpose. Since your assumption is false, your conclusions on our earnings cannot be right.
(d) You claim that all figures published by your newspaper were confirmed by the European Parliament’s own documentation on MEP salaries and allowances. This is manifestly false. The EP documentation never states that we earn 40K, simply because we do not.
(e) You also persist in insinuating that we sign up for allowances without attending to our duties. We repeat that this allegation is unfounded and libellous and we call upon you to withdraw it immediately.
(f) We reiterate that we favour a reform of the current allowance system in the European Parliament. This reform would make the system more transparent. And it would also give MEPs from different countries more or less and equal salary. Currently, Maltese MEPs earn a salary that is around ten times less that of Italian MEPs. For doing the same job. The reform has been delayed because it is still awaiting an agreement from the national governments in the Council of Ministers, not the European Parliament or its members. It is therefore misleading to claim that we “defend” a system when we want it to be reformed.
The long and short of this story is that your newspaper is evidently not interested in reporting our side of the story faithfully. This is not the first time that this has happened.
We have no difficulty with being put under scrutiny since we have nothing to hide or to be ashamed of. On the contrary, we feel that we are doing our utmost to represent Malta effectively and with dignity at a European level.
We also defend your right to disagree with us politically.
But you have no right to smear our reputation with unfounded allegations. On this score we shall continue to defend our integrity and rebut your mud-slinging campaign, not least by taking all the necessary action according to law.
Finally, since your newspaper has established a consistent track record in misrepresenting our replies, we regret to inform you that we see no further point in responding to your communications.
Dr Simon Busuttil MEP
(EPP-ED)
Mr David Casa MEP
(EPP-ED)
Editorial Note
This newspaper has correctly reported all allowances receivable by MEPs and all allowances forwarded by the European Parliament to cover yearly expenses, with facts and figures confirmed by EP officials and official EP documentation, as well as published in other foreign and local newspapers.
This newspaper has never insinuated, in any possible manner, that Malta’s MEPs were pocketing allowances without attendance to their duties. MaltaToday’s reports correctly shed light on the unchecked system of EP perks and privileges, the lack of audit reports, and the existing loopholes that could be tantamount to embezzlement of European taxpayers’ money.
MaltaToday has also kept track of Dr Busuttil’s and Mr Casa’s voting records on reform of the current system of perks and privileges. To this extent, any gratuitous accusations of mud-slinging are null when faced with the straight facts of both MEPs’ voting records on reform.
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