“If there’s one thing Orban and Le Pen love about Europe, it’s EU funds in their pockets,” Daniel Freund, a German green MEP and fierce critic of the Hungarian prime minister, said.
“For another five years, EU taxpayers will fund the corrupt enemies of democracy. And one thing is for sure: they won’t be doing any legislative work. EU taxpayers will pay them for their anti-EU propaganda. It’s a shame.”
Each MEP has a salary of €97,000 a year, as well as a monthly allowance of €4,778 to cover costs such as phone bills. They receive a budget of €29,557 for running offices and hiring assistants.
That comes to an annual total of more than €42.7m for all 84 of the MEPs, which excludes their per diem of €350 for each day they sign into the parliament.
The group also qualifies for cash, which is calculated based on its size. Assuming the 2024 €68m pot for such funding stays the same, the Patriots group is in line to receive more than €8m a year.
The estimated grand total the EU will pay the group and its MEPs every year, for five years, is €50.8m.
The largest group in the European Parliament is the centre-Right European People’s Party (EPP). It has 188 MEPs and can expect €113.4m a year in funding and salaries.
The centre-Left Socialists and Democrats are the second largest group after a June vote, which resulted in Europe’s shift to the Right.
As well as the Patriots and EPP, there is the soft-Eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformist group, which is the fourth largest in the parliament.
It has not joined forces with the Patriots because the Giorgia Meloni-dominated faction, which is pro-Ukraine, sees it as too soft on Vladimir Putin.
The Patriots would have been larger and entitled to more money but have fallen out with the Alternative For Germany (AfD) party after its lead candidate in the elections said not all Waffen SS members were criminals.
The AfD has now formed another, smaller hard-Right group in the parliament.
