Last month, Italian MEPs from the Five Star Movement launched their party’s campaign for the European Parliament elections in May. As one of their main priorities, the party pledged in their manifesto that they will reduce the amount the European Commission is paid if elected in Brussels. According to Italian MEP Ignazio Corrao, in 2019 “taxpayers will spend €12.6million (£11million) to support the Commission body”.
However, to these figures, he noted that certain allowances should be added, such as “residency, expatriation, children allowance and an extra €682,000 (£596,429) for the transitional allowance, which is a subsidy that the commissioners receive at the end of their mandate for a period of two years”.
The Five Star Movement is not the only party in Italy who has denounced the European Commissioners’ salaries, as Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, launched a ferocious attack on the governing body and in particular on EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker earlier this month.
In a video shared on her Facebook page, Ms Meloni claimed that the European Commission is the the most expensive body for European taxpayers and her figures were much higher than Mr Corrao’s.
She said: “The European Commission, led by Juncker, is the body that costs more to taxpayers in Europe, €500million (£435,140) every year, of which €80,000 (£70,000) is for alcohol alone.”
In 2018, the far-right politician criticised Mr Juncker for being drunk at a NATO summit in Brussels, after a video emerged of him struggling to walk alongside a number of world leaders.
She said at the time: “This drunk was being supported by two people, who kept him from falling on the ground.
“This is the President of the European Commission Juncker. The fate of millions of italian workers and the future of our nations depend on him.
“Do you feel safe?”
Ms Meloni was not the only politician who speculated on the state of Mr Juncker.
However, the European Commission President immediately dismissed such claims and said that alcohol had played no role in his condition at the summit.
Unsteady on his feet, the 63-year-old said he was being helped by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Portuguese leader Antonio Costa after a bout of “a particularly painful attack of sciatica, accompanied by cramps”.
In 2016, Mr Juncker dismissed speculation he had an alcohol problem in an interview with French publication Liberation, insisting “rumours” were spread by political opponents.
Mr Juncker was quoted as saying: “Do you think I’d still be in my job if I was hitting the cognac at breakfast time?
“One can excuse a politician anything but not alcoholism.”
Mr Juncker has suffered with sciatica after being involved in a serious car accident in 1989, which left him in a coma for three weeks and a wheelchair for six months.