The European Union’s highest grade of civil servants will be paid more than €20,000 euros (£18,000) a month for the first time, after EU salaries and pensions were increased retroactively from July 1 this year.

The increase means that Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission and Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, will earn about €32,700 euros a month, about €550 more than previously. The increase, meant to cover the cost of living, is equivalent to €6,600 a year.

Germany’s Bild newspaper reported that the salary of EU commissioners, such as Britain’s Julian King, would earn about €26,600 euros, about €400 more including allowances.

Salaries for EU officials in the commission are divided into 16 grades. After each two years, served in post, the salary increases a step, making up the basic wage without allowances.

Directors-general of commission departments on their third step will be paid a monthly basic income of more than €20,000 euros for the first time.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, and Martin Selmayr, the controversial secretary general of the commission, who is responsible for no deal Brexit planning, will also get pay increases.

The EU’s statistics agency calculates annual salary increases based on the cost of living in Belgium and Luxembourg and on wages paid to bureaucrats in other EU countries. This year the increase was 1.7 percent, while last year it was 1.5 percent.

“In actual fact, there is no 'increase' this year,” a European Commission spokesman said.

“Given the annual inflation rate of 2.1 percent in Brussels and Luxembourg, where over 80% of the EU officials work, the nominal increase of 1.5% will actually lead to an effective salary reduction in terms of purchasing power by 0.6 percent,” the spokesman added.

EU officials pay a lower European tax on their earnings than the higher rates of income tax in Belgium and Luxembourg.

The commission said the community tax was a progressive levy with rates of up to 45 percent and its officials also paid a “solidarity levy”, introduced after the financial crisis, of between 6 percent and 7 percent.