Budget proposals – which are likely to be watered down – seized on by campaigners in Brexit referendum

The European parliament has come under fire over a plan to spend millions of euros on a fleet of cars and drivers for MEPs.

Administrators at the parliament want to create an in-house car service for transporting 751 MEPs around Brussels and Strasbourg. The car fleet would add €3.7m (£2.86m) to existing transport costs, bringing the total bill to €10.6m. Under the draft plans, which have not been approved, 110 new drivers would be hired and €116,000 a year spent on uniforms, almost nine times the current outlay on chauffeurs’ outfits.



Eurosceptics seized on the plans as a textbook case of MEPs blowing taxpayers’ money, but a member of the parliament’s influential financial scrutiny committee said the budget was “fairly certain” to be revised down.



Ukip’s leader, Nigel Farage, said: “If ordinary taxpayers knew how their money was being blasted around in Brussels they would come and burn this place down to the ground in disgust. The EU is a racket to take money from those who don’t work for the EU and transfer it to people who do work for the EU.”



Catherine Bearder, a Liberal Democrat MEP who sits on the committee that scrutinises the parliament’s internal rules and finance, said she would call for the plan to be sent back to the drawing board. She was “fairly certain” the plans would not be approved in their current form. “I am really concerned about the figures they have come up with,” she said. “Budget time always throws up things and that is why we have to be on the ball and, as MEPs, be scrutinising the budget that [administrators] present.”

The car fleet plan is likely to come under the microscope when MEPs go through the parliament’s 2017 budget later this month, ahead of a plenary vote in April. If MEPs agree, the car service would start on 1 January 2017.



Even if the plans pass, MEPs will not be getting into the kind of stretch limos that clog up central London. The draft plans refer to “limousines”, which in French means a saloon car. More likely is “a nice Audi or BMW or something”, said one source.



Parliamentary sources argue that changes are needed to tighten security. Currently, two companies in Brussels and Strasbourg are contracted to drive MEPs, but EU security services cannot carry out background checks on chauffeurs. Officials think it is too easy for unknown people to drive into the parliament’s underground car parks.



When the pope visited the European parliament in Strasbourg in 2014, French and Italian officials insisted on more rigorous security: they found five MEP drivers with undeclared criminal records, including one with a manslaughter conviction. All five lost their jobs once their convictions came to light. “A minority of cases have raised some major risks, which are cause for concern,” said Marjory van den Broeke, a spokeswoman for the parliament.



She added that officials also had concerns about the pay and working conditions of contract drivers. The draft car pool plan speaks of “reputational risk” for the parliament following complaints over low pay. In 2015, three drivers for MEPs held a press conference in Strasbourg, alleging their employer, Biribin Europe, paid wages below the legal minimum. Biribin Europe said at the time the claims were wrong.

Both sides in the EU referendum used the story, which was first reported by EU affairs website Politico, to bolster their arguments.



Robert Oxley (@roxley) We make cuts at home, but the European Parliament blows money on €1,000 uniforms for chauffeurs for their new Limos https://t.co/VIXln2SWET

Bearder said the row showed why the UK needed to stay, because Brexit would mean losing any say over how the EU spends its money, including the European parliament’s annual €1.7bn budget. “Even if we left, we would still have to be paying in, as Norway and Switzerland do – so that budget is really important and we should make sure the budget is fit for purpose.”

