Back in November 2017 we formed an Alliance to voice our disappointment with the European Commission's proposal for the review of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), and to make proposals to remedy the
situation. The Alliance reiterated its main concerns in a joint statement in July 2018, following the report on the review by the ECON Committee. Later in September we were pleased to see that, thanks in large part to the work by co-rapporteur Pervenche Berès (MEP), many amendments were in line with the ones proposed by the Alliance.
In this context, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that current members of the ESAs Stakeholder Groups representing non-profit organisations receive reimbursement of accommodation and travel costs as well as a standard allowance per meeting day and for preparing meetings. However, this allowance is not “adequate” to cover the costs for international financial user-side experts, especially when one takes into consideration, not only the rather technical and time-consuming work done in preparation for the SGs meetings, but also the “follow-up work” in-between meetings rightly mentioned in Article 37, including the work of chairs and vice-chairs, but also the work of members of (ad hoc) working groups who prepare drafts for the whole SG, organise and participate in conference calls etc.
Nor is the current compensation “adequate” when one compares it, for example, to the hourly rate of senior commercial consultants hired by European Public Authorities, or even to junior EU institutions’ officials.