As European workers look on helplessly as their salaries’ purchasing power declines precipitously and as their savings are devalued at a seemingly ever-increasing pace, the salaries and pension entitlements of European Union officials, meanwhile, continue to climb a nauseating rate.
Calculations from the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, have revealed that the pension and entitlement claims of Eurocrats (approximately 32,000 employees) climbed to a jaw-dropping 122.6 billion euros at the end of 2021, a six billion increase compared to the total amount at the end of 2020, the German newspaper BILD reports.
Included in the total are pension entitlements as well as healthcare costs of active and retired EU officials and their dependents. Alone, the healthcare benefits system will cost approximately 10.3 billion euros in the long term.
The Commission blamed the ballooning costs on the sharp rise in inflation, which increased at an annual rate of 10.7% in October, up from 9.9% in September, according to data from Eurostat, the European Union’s official statistical agency. Since officials working for the EU benefit from the automatic indexing of wages to inflation, whenever inflation rates increase, their salaries and pensions increase at the same rate.
The news comes after the European Commission in July of this year decided to increase the salaries of EU officials by some 7%, retroactively.
The European Taxpayers Association has sharply criticized the salary and pension increases enjoyed by EU employees, with its Secretary General Michael Jäger saying: “The automatic increase of salaries and pensions in the EU must go.”
Brussels cannot “draw from the full,”while “taxpayers in the EU do not know how to pay their bills,” he added.
It is also worth noting that in addition to receiving salaries and pensions which far exceed the European average, officials working in EU institutions receive a range of other entitlements, including foreign allowances, child allowances, household alliances, and other financial perks. Additionally, employees of the European Union are exempt from national income tax, as per the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the European Union agreement.
