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The Coalition has set the Prime Ministers salary as the upper limit for Whitehall pay, with only a small number of senior officials getting more.

But in Brussels, even mid-ranking administrators can take home more cash than the Prime Minister. The leaked papers show that EU officials in the AD 11 grade, a middle management group, have gross earnings of 112,090, including expatriation and household allowances. But because they pay just 13.4 per cent in tax, they take home 83,357 in net pay.

Those with children will earn substantially more with allowances totalling 7,000 per child each year, meaning many officials with families on lower grades will also earn more than Mr Cameron.

More than 80 per cent of EU officials get a 16 per cent of salary top-up as a perk to compensate them for living in Brussels or Luxembourg for their entire working lives, as well as for household allowances. For an AD11 middle manager, the two allowances are worth more than 1,300 a month.

Officials employed before staff reforms in 2004 are also eligible for additional benefits, taking the number of EU civil servants better paid than Mr Cameron to more than 10,000.

The fact that most Europeans will this week either not vote at all or vote for parties that want to abolish the EU highlights the growing disconnect between the voter and the European institutions, said Chris Howarth, senior policy analyst at the Open Europe think tank.

One immediate action that could establish some goodwill would be for the new European Commission to tackle the issue of overpaid and undertaxed EU bureaucrats.

However, the commission insists the salaries were needed to attract candidates from western European countries. It claims there has been a recruitment crisis, with Britain, for instance, accounting for 12.3 per cent of the EUs population but providing only 1.9 per cent of its officials.

Our headache is maintaining a broad geographical balance, said a spokesman. Were struggling to attract the brightest and best from richer member states, particularly the UK.

Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, said the high levels of pay showed that Mr Cameron's EU reform agenda was not working. "He just tinkered and failed. The only way to save our country's money and our democracy is to exit the EU," he said.

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10,000 European Union officials better paid than David Cameron