Croatian MPs Among Best Paid In Europe

Croatian MPs make approximately 2,500 euros a month, while the ratio of average salary and an MP`s is 1:3.46, Lesar claims.

Salaries of Croatian members of Parliament will be discussed today at the Parliament. House speaker Luka Bebic summoned a meeting to analyse and discuss status rights of Croatian MPs, while looking back on suitable solutions in certain European countries. All Parliament presidents, presidents of committees, clubs of representatives, government representatives, deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, union representatives, along with Transparency International and GONG representatives.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) proposed that a six percent pay rise is not applied to state

Before the meeting organised by Luka Bebic, independent MP Dragutin Lesar published interesting statistics on his blog, concerning the salaries of MPs.

Lesar pointed out that he was not invited to the meeting, as an MP who had his version of the bill. Still, those who were invited to the meeting, were given figures from 13 countries on the amount of salaries of MPs, the GDP, average salary and other items. According to these figures, the ration of MPs` salaries and average salaries in Croatia is 1:2.5.

However, Lesar points out that figures for Croatia are not true. The base for calculating salaries of state officials amounts to 5,415 gross. The coefficient for calculating MPs` salaries is 5.27, which amounts to a gross salary of 28,527 kuna or 15,100 net. According to the Croatian kuna-euro exchange rate, salary of an MP amounts to 2,027 euros, if the MP has no previous Parliament experience. Lesar calculated that the average salary of a Croatian MP is 2,500 euros, which means that the ration is 1:3.46, and not 1:2.5.

The number of privileged pension users among MPs and cabinet members is 450 with the average pension of 9,875 kuna (approximately 1,325 euros). Total pension average in Croatia is 2,126 kuna (approximately 285 euros), which is 1:4.46.