Which coordinator?

Hi Carlos,

Which cordinator is it, the local from your University or the project coordinator, in any case as Tanja said the EU clearly states that salary and mobility allowance shall be paid in full to the fellow, this includes not forcing the fellow to pay for buisness trips from private money.

The duration of the trip is off course irrelevant, if your chef sends you a trip (in this case because your chef agreed to do so with someone who gives him a lot of money) then your chef has to pay for it. The EU clearly sees it the same, so you should definetely hold on and try and get it, for certain countries housing costs can be extreme, especially short time rental.

If after all only a court case is left and you don't feel like it you can still get a small portion of the money back as a tax return, here your taxable income is reduced by the amount of rent you paid during your secondment, with an effective tax and social security rate of about 40% you can expect to get just over 40% off your secondment costs back from the tax office, not a bad deal, but still it is not what you signed up for.

Really try and adress the issue with your supervisor and / or coordinator, One of the things I have learned during this Marie Curie fellowship is how to stand up and say it doesn't work this way (okay my story is hopefully more extreme as most), but in the end it is a valuable asset if you can convince other people that you are right on a matter, especially if the other person is a superior, it is for many very hard though to start about the topic in the first place.

Best regards,

Johan