MEPs vote to keep salaries and first class travel

BRUSSELS (Agencies) MEPs voted yesterday to avoid applying to themselves the very austerity measures many of the countries they represent are applying to their pensioners and public servants. Among other things, they voted to continue travelling First Class, to freeze their present salaries until 2012. The Spanish MEPs mostly voted together -as they would never do in Spain unless for a similar reason perhaps, which saw the 16 PPs and 18 PSOEs in the same voting wing, including their chiefs, Jaime Mayor Oreja (PP) and Juan Fernando López Aguilar (PSOE), although the latter said around midnight that he would be 'rectifying' his vote. As they might be saying in Brussels if not in other parts of Europe: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same).