How much German Parliament MPs win

Most members of the German parliament do not have secondary revenues of more than 1,000 euros per month or 10,000 euros a year, which they should declare specifically. However, one of the four deputies -- 178 out of a total of 630 deputies who has the German Parliament -- has secondary incomes that cross the border. Some of them are, for example, members of supervisory boards, others along with the mandate of MPs working as lawyers or having a farm.

According to a study by the Otto Branner Foundation implemented in co-operation with the initiative abgeardnetwatch. de, 178 MPs dealing with their businesses as well as politics have earned about 26.5m to 48.7m euros.

Referralism?

MP and farmer Josef Rief (CDU) criticises the fate that MPs are obliged to declare revenues, but not profits. He says that after tax spending on wages and other expenses needed for the 50-hectare farm, as well as the pig - breeding farm -- the one of 686,000 to 1.1m euros -- remains a profit of about 11,000 euros. According to him, the list compiled by the Otto Brainer Foundation and the Abgeardnetwatch.de initiative is arbitrary.

Even the deputy and farmer from Brandenburg Hans-Georg von der Marwitz says he cannot give up the farm, since he has been elected deputy. Even according to him, the list is not correct, because MPs who generate secondary income from lectures, consultations or posts on various enterprise boards have no cost for personnel and other expenses, and do not have to drop such costs from their arrivals.

Like. The former SPD candidate for the post of Chancellor Peer Steinbrück has won since 2009 from speeches and referrals 1,25m euros, as well as another 110,000 euros as a member of the ThyssenKrupp steel concert monitoring board.

New Rules for More Transparency

Because of allegations that MPs earn a lot of secondary work, parliament has established in 2013 a new system escalating for income statements. This amounts to between 1,000,3,500, the lowest rate of up to $250,000, the highest rate.

But according to the authors of the study on parliamentary incomes that both the farmers -- Joseph Riff and Hans-Georg von der Marwitz -- are also members of the Parliamentary Commission for Food and Agriculture.

Gregor Hackack, cofounder of the initiative for monitoring MPs abgErdentenwatch.de, tells DW that “is problematic when in such a commission they are MPs who have farms themselves and who make decisions on subsidy benefits from their farms. ”

According to the study, it is noted that MPs in general at the end of the electoral period have more incomes from secondary work than at first when they received the mandate. In this case Gregor Huckmack raises the question, have they found these secondary jobs due to the mandate as deputies?

According to him, however, rules for more transparency and the new system escalating for income statements have caused many MPs to limit their secondary affairs. But in the opinion of Gregor Hackmack these rules should be stiffened even further. /DW/