Setting a good example

Amid gloomy economic news about the state of Greece's public finances and impending austerity measures, former MEP and Greek singing legend Nana Mouskouri has today said she will donate her pension from her time as an MEP (1994-1999) to the public coffers to help Greece tackle its debt crisis.


At around £23,000 a year, it won't bring Greece's debt levels to within the 3% GDP required by the EU's Growth and Stability Pact all on its own, but is a response to calls for wealthy Greeks to contribute more money to the national treasury in the current crisis.


Amid never-ending examples of how the European Parliament wastes taxpayers' money, and MEPs voting for endless increases to their allowances, it's nice to see that not everyone goes to Brussels to climb aboard the gravy train and milk it for all they can get (for those who find it hard to believe see last year's blog piece on Swedish MEP Jens Holm donating his travel expenses to charity).

MEPs have a long, long way to go to arrest citizens' declining faith in the European Parliament, but if more took the same approach as Jens Holm and Nana Mouskouri it would make a start.