EU staff unite against national controls

Date: 15/05/1997

By Rory Watson

ATTEMPTS led by Germany to give member states greater control over the salaries and working conditions of EU officials have sparked a vigorous fight-back by staff unions. Bonn's initiative has provoked a rare show of unity among the six staff organisations as they try to fend off attempts to rewrite the 30-year-old rules which determine the 25,000 Union fonctionnaires' pay, duties and responsibilities.

Within days of the idea being floated in the Intergovernmental Conference on treaty reform, the unions have demanded meetings with European Commission President Jacques Santer and the Dutch EU presidency to spell out their opposition.

“With the IGC talks due to end next month, we must move quickly. If we do not receive satisfactory answers, then we might have to resort to other action,” warned European Civil Service Federation (FFPE) president Loek Rijnoudt.

Germany's suggestion that the 1965 Merger Treaty should be amended to allow governments to change the staff regulations without the need for a Commission proposal first would pave the way for member states to table their own proposals and adopt them by majority vote.

The staff unions fear that, without the restraining hand of the Commission, salaries, job security and the independence of the European civil service would be threatened.

Bonn insists its proposal should not be seen as an attack on the Commission, which is drafting its own plans for radical internal reform. But at the same time Germany maintains that it is unacceptable for EU salaries to be significantly higher than those of comparable civil servants in member states. German European Affairs Minister Werner Hoyer has pointed out that employees in the European patent office in Munich are paid twice as much as those in Germany's own patent office in the same city.

EU staff insist they should be compared not with domestic civil servants but with national diplomats posted overseas. They also point out that for the past five years their annual salary increases, determined by an objective mathematical formula, have been below the inflation rate.

Comparisons compiled by the unions indicate that the annual net salary (95,251 ecu) of a married middle-ranking A grade EU official with two children is some 8,000 ecu more than that of United Nations counterparts, but 3,000 ecu less than staff at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Western European Union.

French and UK diplomats posted abroad receive between 12,500 ecu and 9,000 ecu a year more than EU officials of similar seniority and the unions insist the gap between EU and diplomatic salaries is even greater for secretarial staff.

After last year's salary increase of 1.4&percent;, gross monthly payments for EU officials range from 13,430 ecu for a few top staff to 1,830 ecu for the most junior doorman.