1 Oct. Non transparent Danes and Schultz’s anger

“I am personally astonished at the lack of transparency”. No, this is not about Italy. It is about a German addressing a Dane, a representative of a country which usually reminds the rest of Europe about the importance of transparency. Yet, when it comes to money, even the Danes can be obscure and conceal the truth.

 The tit for that occurred last spring, when Martin Schulz, German and President of the European Parliament, asked Jeppe Tranholp-Mikkelsen, the Danish Permanent Representative to the Union holding the rotating Presidency, to know the salaries of diplomats posted to national institutions to the EU. The reason was to have some comparison as the Parliament is in the process of reorganising its salaries. At the beginning of March Schulz wrote to Mikkelsen explaining that Parliament employees are comparable to civil servants working abroad, so their salaries could be comparable to those of other civil servants, such as diplomats posted to Brussels.

 We do not know whether this was seen as a good idea; we do know that after over six weeks Mikkelsen’s reply to Schulz caused his “utmost dissatisfaction” and astonishment “at the lack of transparency and institutional respect that you and your colleagues have shown”. The President explains that he had asked all Permanent Representatives but received just confused and disaggregated information regarding public sector salaries. Schulz thus repeats his request, but according to Eurospia the Danes are still playing deaf. 

Lettre M Schulz MS réforme