Thaindian News

London, Dec.6 (ANI): European Union diplomats are being strongly criticized and condemned for their lavish and wasteful lifestyle.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has said that the European Union foreign service is an “unbelievable example of the Europe gravy train.”

“With whopping salaries, long holidays and a lavish lifestyle funded in part by British taxpayers, these diplomats are on Easy Street. With pressures on the public finances and necessary spending cuts at home, ordinary families in the UK should not be expected to pay for this sort of thing,” it added.

According to a Daily Express report, the European Union foreign ministry is expected to cost about 400-million-pounds to run next year, of which 54-milion-pounds will come from British taxpayers, even as Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office faces 17 per cent cuts to save 300-million-pounds.

With salaries up to 188,000 pounds a year, generous holidays rising to 15 weeks a year, including 18 bank holidays, and annual bonuses of up to 50 per cent of wages on offer, critics have savaged the European Union for its “arrogance”.

Europe’s new foreign ministry, the European External Action Service, was formally launched behind closed doors last week in a low-key ceremony designed to keep it out of the headlines.

The body was established under the Lisbon Treaty and is headed by British Labour peer Baroness Ashton.

Critics have claimed it will duplicate and undermine work already being done around the world by member states’ own diplomats and is yet another European Union power-grab.(ANI)