Brexit transition granted … for British MEPs

The UK’s representatives will continue to receive perks from the European Parliament for months after they leave their posts.

Even after their country leaves the EU, British MEPs will get funds, access to the Parliament and their official email accounts, and a last free trip back home.

According to an internal “notice” dated January 9 and seen by POLITICO on “End of mandate for Members elected in the U.K. : information regarding their financial and social entitlements, their staff, and logistics,” the European Parliament will reimburse British MEPs for “final trip” back to the U.K. from their “last final registered presence” in Brussels or Strasbourg or “more generally at the end of their last working week,” before Brexit day on January 31.

The assembly will also give U.K. MEPs an additional three months to access Parliament email accounts and the “ePOrtal” intranet and they will benefit from a “badge for former members” to access the Parliament “from Monday to Friday during building opening hours.”

With the U.K. now all but certain to leave the EU at the end of the month, MEPs were asked to vacate their offices next week in Strasbourg and before February 7 in Brussels.

Similar notices have been sent to U.K. parliamentarians before, since the Brexit deadline has been pushed back several times.

British MEPs will travel to Strasbourg next week for their last plenary session (though a two-day plenary in Brussels is scheduled for January 29).

As POLITICO has previously reported, the internal note reiterated that British MEPs, whose contracts expire on January 31, can receive half of the “General Expenditure Allowance” for three months after Brexit day. The GEA is a controversial €4,416 monthly payment that MEPs are given to cover office and other expenses, without having to provide any evidence of how the money is spent.

MEPs can also claim a “transitional allowance” of €8,611.31 per month before tax for up to two years, depending on their length of service.

The financial package offered to Brexiting MEPs is no different from that offered to any other EU legislator leaving the assembly, for example if they are voted out.