MEP pension fund invested in cluster munition arms trade

Cluster munitions comprise a number of explosive bomblets that carpet a big space and may kill unsuspecting civilians presumably weeks later.

Amongst those who had manufactured them previously are Raytheon, Honeywell Worldwide, and Textron Inc. The European Parliament’s voluntary pension scheme invested in all three.

In 2008, it owned 14,900 shares in Raytheon with a market worth of $547,000 and 27,000 shares in Honeywell Worldwide with a market worth of $637,000. In 2007, it held 7,600 shares in Textron Inc with a market worth of $370,000.

Textron Inc stopped the manufacturing of enormous cluster munitions in 2016 after proof emerged that the Saudis had used them towards civilians in Yemen.

And Norway’s sovereign wealth fund had in 2005 blacklisted Raytheon and Honeywell Worldwide for producing and promoting cluster munitions. So too did KBC Financial institution in Belgium 2006 given the controversy surrounding the weapons.

Together with Aerojet Basic, Honeywell Worldwide developed the CBU-87 mixed results munition, which was extensively utilized in US Desert Storm within the early Nineteen Nineties to devastating impact.

Human Rights Watch estimates 60 % of these killed from cluster munitions dropped by US and UK forces throughout the first Gulf Warfare had been below the age of 15. Raytheon and Honeywell Worldwide now not manufacture cluster bombs, they are saying.

Round 11,800 shares had been additionally owned in Northrop Grumman company and with a 2008 market worth of $382,000. And it held one other 79,000 shares in BAE Techniques, a British multinational arms, safety, and aerospace firm, with a £311,000 market worth.

It has held shares in BAE Techniques because the Nineteen Nineties, when it was often known as British Aerospace. It’s unclear if the pension nonetheless holds the above talked about shares given the historic data on investments was solely disclosed up till 2010.

Other than the moral questions of utilizing European taxpayer cash to put money into the arms trade to finance an MEP pension fund, the European Parliament will possible must squeeze some €400m from the general public for its bailout.

The fund is set to go bust between 2024, the 12 months of the European elections, and 2026.

The parliament has been unable to discover a answer, elevating alarm from MEPs overseeing budgets.

“It is a shame. I feel the largest query is what occurs with the deficit of the fund,” mentioned German Inexperienced MEP Daniel Freund. “Is there going to be further taxpayer cash thrown into this? I feel not a cent ought to go into this,” he mentioned.

Monika Hohlmeier, a German MEP and Johan van Overtveldt, a former Belgian finance minister, issued comparable statements in a joint letter to the EU parliament president Roberta Metsola final 12 months.

They mentioned that the fund poses “potential devastating reputational dangers for the European Parliament”.

‘Not within the public curiosity’

The parliament, and its former funding advisor, Credit score Agricole Luxembourg Personal Financial institution, have additionally refused to reveal the investments.

In a letter to EUobserver, the European Parliament claimed disclosure would undermine the safety of business pursuits, brushing away public curiosity arguments.

An attraction made by this web site was additionally rejected in December 2022 for comparable causes by conservative European Parliament vice-president Roberts Zile, who oversees document-access requests.

Credit score Agricole Luxembourg Personal Financial institution additionally refused after which declined to clarify why when pressed.

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However EUobserver then obtained an in depth breakdown of the investments relationship from 1994 till 2010 after downloading annual statements from a public register.

These statements had been produced by the directors of the pension scheme, a non-profit often known as the “Pension Fund of the Members of the European Parliament.”

The non-profit is at the moment registered on the European Parliament constructing in Luxembourg and was initially administered by lively and later former MEPs.

The scheme got here below a Luxembourg funding fund often known as a ‘SICAV-FIS’.

First arrange within the early Nineteen Nineties and open to MEPs till 2009, the voluntary pension fund is bleeding giant quantities of money due to the variety of folks hitting retirement age.

Amongst them is the EU’s overseas coverage chief, Josep Borrell, who’s at the moment drawing a pension from the controversial fund.

Others embrace Miguel Arias Canete when he was European commissioner for local weather. Canete was additionally among the many MEPs who sat as an administrator of the scheme.

Requested for a remark when offered with the investments, the European Parliament mentioned it was not a liberty to a make assertion.

“The voluntary pension fund is a non-profit affiliation ruled by Luxembourgish regulation. It’s a third social gathering distinct from the European Parliament that may due to this fact not touch upon the requested parts,” mentioned a EU parliament spokesperson, in an e-mail.

MEPs solely needed to pay into the fund for 2 years to get a pension. For each €1,000 paid into it, the EU parliament contributed €2,000.

The MEP share was deducted from their month-to-month workplace allowance of a number of thousand euros, itself shrouded in secrecy given the shortage of transparency on the how the cash is spent.

Among the many largest defenders of the secrecy behind the month-to-month allowance is European Parliament vice-president Rainer Wieland who instructed this web site that its lack of transparency is a non-issue.

Different investments made on behalf of the voluntary pension scheme embrace large tobacco, mining, fossil fuels, and main prescription drugs.

Others nonetheless had been made in offshore tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

EUobserver will quickly be revealing the small print behind these as a part of on-going collection right into a damaged MEP pension fund that the European Parliament’s management has been unable or unwilling to resolve.

This text is the primary in a collection concerning the questionable investments made by the MEP pension fund, and its deficit.