MEP, a job full of benefits
Organized in the middle of the Hungarian parliamentary cycle, the European elections do not only serve to measure the balance of power in domestic politics. The financial rewards accompanying winning a seat can also be important for parties, especially opposition movements that are not swimming in abundance. In an interview, Peter Magyar (rival of Viktor Orban) declared that politicians until now only saw Brussels as a cash drawer, from which 2 billion forints (5.2 million euros) can be brought in in five years. If the public data from the European Parliament makes it difficult to give concrete figures, this calculation seems rather excessive.
The funds that can be obtained depend on many factors, including the group in which a party candidate sits, because the funds that can be spent most flexibly come from the parliamentary groups. According to our source based in Brussels, this sum would be around 100,000 euros per year. An amount allowing you to order studies, organize conferences or even make pens or notebooks with the party logo and other representational gifts. According to our informants, it was from this budget that the posters of Klara Dobrev (head of the United Left list) advocating a “European child protection”. Imperative: do not forget to display the party logo.
Other major aid for the campaign, MEPs receive 4,950 euros monthly in order to be able to continue working in their country of election. Enough to rent their local office, pay telephone bills and mailings, obtain and maintain IT tools.
Theoretically, the EU strictly monitors every expenditure, supposedly made in the course of work related to the European Parliament. Except that in practice it is almost impossible to check whether the party is not using an office for another activity. One lock remains: the envelope is divided
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Article source
Heti Vilaggazdasag (Budapest)
Launched ten years before the fall of the Wall by reformers open to liberalism, Heti Vilaggazdasag (HVG) (“Weekly World Economy”) is today the leading Magyar weekly. A fan of punchy covers, sometimes accompanied by more or less subtle or ironic puns, this Economist Hungarian style, following the model and the line of its model, reaches nearly 1.5 million people per week between the paper version and its various digital content. Several times awarded the Pulitzer Prize, HVG associates its readers with additional programs through a club, manages its own publishing house called HVG Konyvek (“HVG Books”) and organizes job fairs twice a year.
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