The costs associated with business trips made abroad by MPs and employees of the Parliament’s Secretariat totaled nearly 2 million lei in the second half of 2023. In an analysis, Promo-LEX Association finds, by comparison with the previous years, that the number of trips and the costs incurred for them increased constantly, IPN reports.

During the monitoring period, a total of 82 orders authorizing trips abroad were made. To honor the invitations, 1.9 million lei was spent from the Parliament’s budget. In the case of 41% of the trips, their full or partial costs were covered by the organizers. So, the total expenses for business trips abroad by MPs and employees of the Parliament’s Secretariat were much higher.

67% of the total costs went on business trips made abroad by MPs of the Party of Action and Solidarity Party (by 2% more than in the previous monitoring period), 27% - for those by the staff of the Parliament’s Secretariat, and 6% - for trips by MPs of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists (by 2% less than in the previous monitoring period). Similar to the previous monitoring period, the independent and nonaffiliated MPs didn’t make any business trips abroad.

Most of the incurred costs were for the payment of daily allowances to delegation members (43.6%), for transport (39.2%), and for accommodation services (21.7%).

“According to the data, the MPs of the PAS group are both in the rankings of MPs with the highest expenses for travel (with Igor Grosu at the top) and in the rankings of MPs with the lowest expenses for travel (with Petru Frunze leading),” said Promo-LEX.

Depending on the purpose of business trips abroad, most of the trips were made to the U.S. (7), Belgium (6), Romania (5), France, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy (3 each), Georgia, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Finland, Lithuania, Poland and Serbia (2 each), Estonia, Japan, the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Croatia, Greece, North Macedonia, Ireland, Portugal, Slovakia, and Israel (1 each). 63% of all the trips were made for the purpose of participating in various regional/international events (up 8%), while 37% were official, study and business visits (down 3%).

Promo-LEX analyzed the data in connection with the monitoring of the Parliament’s work, especially from the angles of transparency, legality and efficiency of procedures, within the “Democracy, Transparency and Accountability” Program that is financially supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).