EU officials strike over changes to pensions

Date: 10/04/03

By David Cronin

OFFICIALS in the EU institutions are due to down tools tomorrow (11 April) in a one-day strike against a plan by eight member states to alter their pension entitlements.

The plan, presented to the Council of Ministers last month, contends that the current system is "excessively generous".

It states: "Costs [of officials' pensions] to the EC budget have been rising at alarming rates: in 2000 they totalled €564 million, this year they are expected to be €736 million - a 30% increase over three years. By 2020, if average pensions only keep pace with inflation and not incomes, then the cost will be €1.46 billion."

The proposed changes are supported by Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and the UK.

Under the present scheme officials accrue two percentage points each year and can receive up to 70% of their salary as a pension after retiring at 65. The new proposals, however, suggest that a 1.75% point system should be introduced in line with similar pension schemes for national civil servants in most EU states.

Union Syndicale, the main staff body for EU officials, has branded the blueprint "conflict-driven, provocative and unacceptable".

Alan Hick, the head of its Brussels branch, said: "Eight national delegations in Council, not having contributed for years to the pension scheme which was financed only by officials, now want to trash it."

The existing system, he said, has "guaranteed social peace in the institutions for more than 20 years".

Pickets will be outside the Council's Justus Lipsius headquarters, said Hick, who threatened more stoppages unless the plan was withdrawn.

Officials in the EU institutions are due to take industrial action on 11 April 2003 in a one-day strike against a plan by eight Member States to alter their pension entitlements.