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Podemos’ new MPs eschew financial perks

podemosSpain’s Podemos party said its MPs will forego many of the perks traditionally enjoyed by parliamentarians.

As well as limiting their salaries, privileges, such as housing benefits, taxi money, and some expenses, will be curtailed.

Podemos captured 69 seats in the December elections, catapulting it into the country’s third political force.

"All MPs must renounce privileges such as ex-parliamentary pensions, the €3,000 card for taxis and the payment of home internet, as well as limiting their salaries and the expenses received for housing and maintenance," the party announced in a statement.

MPs from outside Madrid will accept only €850 of the possible €1,823 in housing expenses, while salaries will be capped at a maximum of three times the minimum wage - around €1950 - in line with other public sector workers.

The money saved will be channelled back into the party and into social projects, according to the daily El Mundo.

Other Podemos party officials have also renounced some benefits.

Manuela Carmana, the mayor of Madrid who took office in May last year after having been backed by Podemos, has ditched the mayoral car, preferring to take the metro, and gave up the privileged VIP seats at the Madrid opera and the city’s bullring.

The final outcome of the election is yet to be decided. Fewer votes for the conservative Popular Party stripped it of its absolute majority. To govern, it needs support from other parties.

Neither the Socialists nor Podemos have so far agreed to enter an arrangement with it.

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