{"id":188325,"date":"2025-12-17T13:59:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/188325\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T13:59:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:59:06","slug":"former-eu-lawmakers-lose-case-against-pension-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/188325\/","title":{"rendered":"Former EU lawmakers lose case against pension cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Former EU lawmakers including Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen have been denied a payday after the bloc\u2019s second-highest court dismissed a case against cuts to their supplementary parliamentary pensions.<\/p>\n

The General Court of the EU threw out the claim by 405 former MEPs<\/a>, led by Spain\u2019s Enrique Bar\u00f3n Crespo, that the cuts \u2014 made to avoid a taxpayer bailout \u2014 were unlawful.<\/p>\n

Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Le Pen, of the far-right Rassemblement National in France, have not commented on whether they joined the case but would have benefited from a positive verdict. All except Bar\u00f3n Crespo maintained their anonymity.<\/p>\n

The voluntary fund set up in 1994 is used by almost 900 former and current members or dependants and was backed by the European parliament.<\/p>\n

But the body in 2023 decided to cut payouts to plug a \u20ac310mn deficit caused by poor investment performance and the longevity of its members.<\/p>\n

\"NigelFormer MEP Nigel Farage has not commented on whether he joined the case but would have benefited from a positive court verdict \u00a9 Sean Gallup\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The parliament also raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 and ended the automatic increase in benefits linked to inflation. As a consequence, the average pension received from the fund has been halved.<\/p>\n

The scheme provides beneficiaries with a pension pot worth about \u20ac375,000 per person on average with monthly payments between \u20ac2,000-\u20ac7,000. Most former MEPs also receive national pensions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court said in a press release<\/a> that the 2023 decision was aimed at \u201csafeguarding\u201d the fund and \u201climiting the impact of its deficit for European taxpayers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially given that it is a voluntary additional pension, that decision does not have the effect of reducing the nominal pension amounts to a manifestly unreasonable level, in view of the duration of the term of office and the contribution amounts paid,\u201d the court added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The parliament had calculated that the moves should reduce the deficit to \u20ac86mn. The scheme has payment obligations to more than 900 members until at least 2074. Only a handful of current MEPs are beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Bar\u00f3n Crespo and the others had argued that the reduction breached the \u201cprinciple of parliamentary independence\u201d and was disproportionate. <\/p>\n

Andrew Duff, a British former Liberal Democrat MEP, previously said his monthly income from the scheme had fallen from about \u20ac3,600 to \u20ac1,800 and he needed the money to travel to Brussels to participate in EU policy debates.<\/p>\n

Josep Borrell, the EU\u2019s former foreign policy chief, and former British minister Chris Heaton-Harris are members, though they did not sue. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

The plaintiffs can appeal against the verdict at the highest court, the European Court of Justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-188325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}