The European Parliament is an elected body of 785 MEPs, symbol of the EU's proud claim to be a political enterprise based on democratic foundations. It is the only direct link between the European Union bureaucracy and we, the European taxpayers who employ its members to represent us. In addition to its lawmaking powers, it approves the EU's annual budget and, in theory, it holds the Commission to account.

These services do not come cheap. Apart from MEPs' salaries, which are directly paid by each government at national rates, the bill is €1.32 billion a year, an amount voted by the Parliament and incorporated into the EU budget. The Parliament thus both sets and polices its own spending.

Every cent/penny should be open to scrutiny. MEPs are all for transparency in EU institutions - other EU institutions, that is. They refuse even to render internal accounts for the bulk of the expenses they claim, let alone to disclose that information to the public. These expenses account for more than a fifth of the Parliament's budget, €277.2 million a year. They include travel (not just to and from Brussels and Strasbourg; MEPs may claim €4,000 of travel outside the EU), their constituency offices, and their personal staff. The total comes to €353,121 a head.

This may or may not be a reasonable sum; it may be spent as advertised, or MEPs may be stuffing their pockets. There, is, outrageously, no way to find out. The European Court of Auditors records that fewer than 30 per cent of MEPs' claims for staff allowances are backed by any evidence that people were actually employed or duties carried out, and has called for MEPs to be issued with recovery orders for expenses not backed by receipts. It has been ignored.

The EU Ombudsman has threatened to make a finding of maladministration against the Parliament for suppressing, on the basis that publication would be “an intrusion into family and or personal life”, a list of 475 MEPs who benefit from a pension scheme worth $1,850 a month, two thirds funded by taxpayers. It is wide open to abuse because the third that MEPs pay is automatically deducted from office expenses, with no check on whether the “advance” is reimbursed. The Ombudsman said last September that MEPs should make their financial records public. Tomorrow is the (delayed) deadline for the Parliament's budgetary control committee to reply.

This is the selfsame committee that not only voted this week to keep secret an internal report into fiddling of expenses, but virulently attacked the auditor who wrote it, and the MEP who had the gall to reveal its existence. “Passing information to the press,” fumed a Spanish member, “is a misuse of information.” Spoken like a true MEP.

Since when has accountability been an abuse, in democracies? There are key questions here that should not have to be asked but do need to be answered. To whom, if anyone, do MEPs believe that they should be responsible? Why is a free press deemed a menace to this institution? In what other system would parliamentarians have to sign confidentiality agreements before being allowed to examine whether expenses have been improperly manipulated? Why a cult of secrecy rarely seen this side of North Korea? Here at home, are Gordon Brown or David Cameron proud that MEPs from their ranks have joined this despicable conspiracy of silence? Those MEPs would not be in place without their party colours to wear at elections. So what, finally, do Mr Brown and Mr Cameron intend to do now?