Key test looms for Kinnock’s reform plans

Date: 25/11/1999

By Simon Taylor

FIFTEEN thousand European Commission staff will vote next week on who should represent them on the institution's personnel committee, in what is being seen as the first big test of Vice-President Neil Kinnock's internal reform plans.

Officials say the outcome will provide a strong indicator of the staff's attitude towards Kinnock's handling of the reform process so far, with attention focusing on how many seats the radical staff union Renouveau et Democratie (R&D) wins on the committee which represents Commission staff working in Brussels.

R&D, which is currently the second most powerful union in the institution behind the Union Syndicale, has emerged as the fiercest opponent of Kinnock's plans at a time when other staff unions have moderated their language and are stressing their willingness to cooperate in the reform process.

The union, which counts whistle-blower Paul van Buitenen as a founder member and candidate in next week's election, says it is confident of adding to its current tally of six seats on the Brussels committee, which sends representatives to meetings of the central staff committee responsible for negotiating with the Commission on relations between the administration and staff. "Mr Kinnock is in for an unpleasant surprise," said R&D president Franco Ianniello.

His union has attacked Kinnock's draft reform proposals as a thinly-veiled attempt to reduce the Commission's independence relative to governments. "Kinnock is trying to weaken the Commission so that it becomes nothing more than the secretariat of the member states," Ianniello told European Voice.

He argues that Kinnock's "attacks on staff unions" are an indication of his desire for reforms "which can only be adopted against the wishes of the personnel".

R&D has also been strongly critical of the paper presented by Kinnock last week which called for the creation of an independent financial watchdog in the Commission, insisting he should have called for additional staff to enable the new body to do its job properly as recommended by the committee of wise men.

The union claims that "this is an essential point on which the current Commission will be judged by staff", and says Kinnock's plans to make individual departments responsible for financial controls could be "very dangerous" because they failed to give auditors adequate independence from directors-general.

Ianniello insists, however, that R&D is not opposed to reform as such, simply to the approach being taken by Kinnock. The Commissioner has already provoked disquiet among the staff unions with his plans to change the way the institution negotiates with staff representatives. He wants to reduce the number of unions involved in consultations by eliminating those which represent less than 5% of the Commission workforce and reducing full-time staff seconded to unions from 25 to 5.