Italian members of parliament are paid substantially higher salaries than those in other West European countries.

A number of political scandals have taken place across Europe over the salaries and expenses paid to MPs in national parliaments: most notably in the UK’s ‘expenses scandal’ in 2009. Pablo Oñate looks at the different levels of salary paid to MPs across several European countries. He finds that the raw salary paid to members of parliament is typically higher in Northern European countries than it is in Southern European countries, such as Spain and Portugal. When these salaries are compared with GDP per capita figures, however, most of the countries considered pay similar amounts to their representatives. Italy is the one exception, with significantly higher MP salaries than the rest of the countries in the analysis.