Some People (Barbara Hall, Herman Van Rompuy) Get to Ride the Gravy Train Express Into Their Sunset Years

For those who thought it was more than a bit much when, following an extended stint as Ontario's  chief "human rights" commissar, Barbara Hall was tapped by our shady provincial government for yet another cushy gig, here's the story of a highly-placed EU bureaucrat who, like our Babs, has it made:

Herman Van Rompuy will be entitled to more than £500,000 for doing nothing at the taxpayer’s expense over the next three years, after finishing his term as president of Europe.  

After standing down on Monday, the former president of the European Council will be paid £133,723 a year, 55 per cent of his basic salary, until December 2017 - to ease him back into life outside the world of Brussels officialdom.  

The Telegraph has established that Mr Van Rompuy will also receive a one off payment of £21,000 and, aged 67, he will be able draw a lifetime EU pension worth £52,000 a year, taking his earnings to £578,000 over the next three years.  

The "transitional allowance" does not require Mr Van Rompuy to do any work at all and the cash will be paid under reduced rates of EU "community" tax, which are far lower than taxation in his native country of Belgium.  

The allowances are defended as "the price for the total independence" of senior European Union officials who must also "ask permission for any job they would like to do for 18 months after leaving”...

Doing nothing at the taxpayers' expense: I bet that's not making Mr. Rumpy-Pumpy grumpy!




Hall and Rumpy-Pumpy sing: "Nice work if you can get it,
and you can get it if you're me..."