Transparency

Diet

My regular income as a member of parliament has been €10,075.18 gross per month since 1.07.2023. I pay tax on this income as normal in Germany.

I also receive an attendance fee of €350 per day that I work in Parliament in Brussels. I receive this money to cover the additional costs of accommodation and meals during my stay in Brussels and Strasbourg. Even in times of Covid-19, MEPs had access to meeting allowances, but these funds were drawn down to a much lesser extent because most MEPs were rarely in Brussels during the pandemic. I am sometimes offered speaking fees, which I usually turn down. If I accept them, I donate this additional income. I donate around €20,000 a year to charitable causes and my party.

Personnel costs

MEPs have a monthly staff budget of €28,696 at their disposal in 2024. This is used to pay the salaries and social security contributions of my current six staff members, four of whom work in Brussels, one in Berlin and one in Magdeburg. Interns are also paid from this budget, as are my employees' business trips and further training. It is important to me that all my employees, including the interns, receive a fair wage so that the personnel budget is used in full. The staff budget is not managed by the MEPs themselves, but by the European Parliament.

Funds for public relations

All MEPs are also entitled to a budget for political public relations work, which totals €48,550 per year. In order to access these funds, each individual application must be checked for compliance with the guidelines and approved individually by the parliamentary group. I can use the approved funds for events or print products such as information brochures, for example.

General expenditure allowance

In order to pay for office costs and other general expenses, I receive €4950 per month, as do all MEPs, into an account set up specifically for this purpose. I use these funds, for example, for my office rent in Berlin and Magdeburg, telephone costs for my team, hardware and software for my team, postage costs, office supplies and similar costs of this kind.

In recent years, our Green Group has repeatedly pointed out that the use of the general cost allowance is not transparent enough. However, since so far all motions to revise the rules have been rejected or have not yet been implemented, the Greens/EFA have made a voluntary commitment on 1 July 2017 to create more transparency: we want to ensure that MEPs' handling of the money from the general expenses allowance becomes more comprehensible.

You can download the commitment click here (in english).

Lobby meeting

In order to know what is needed for a humane and just policy, I meet with many different interest groups. But this has to happen in a way that is comprehensible to everyone. that is why our group has voluntarily committed itself to document all meetings with lobby groups in a publicly accessible way. the only exception is meetings whose publication could endanger the persons concerned. this can be the case, for example, with human rights activists.

Under the following link you can see with whom I met and when:

To the past meetings

Overview of the General Cost Allowance 2022

(general expenditure allowance, GEA for short)

In 2022, my team and I used funds amounting to 56,143.21 for this purpose. This overview shows what we used these funds for.
NoteThe exact amounts may still change slightly for 2022.