Finns seek job-cuts compromise

The Finnish presidency is planning a special meeting with Dalia Grybauskaiteú, the budget commissioner, in September to try to find a compromise after Helsinki proposed cutting 1,700 Commission posts over the next few years.

Last Friday (14 July), EU finance ministers agreed a programme to boost productivity in the EU institutions by only replacing half of all officials who retire by 2013. They also agreed to cut by €56 million the amount requested by the Commission for salaries for new recruits next year as part of negotiations to set the 2007 budget.

But in a testy exchange with Finnish Budget Minister Ulla-Maj Wideroos during a press conference after the meeting, Grybauskaiteú said that the plans would not permit the Commission to meet its objective of recruiting 4,000 staff from new member states by the end of 2008 and would mean it would fail to ensure sufficient geographical balance among officials. She said that losing 1,700 posts was the equivalent of closing three directorates-general.

The TAO-AFI-A&D staff union this week questioned whether the Commission would "be able to go on functioning properly" if the Finns got their way. It called on President José Manuel Barroso to intervene to save the "future of the Commission".

Wideroos stressed that the funding proposals were "important to preserve the confidence of citizens" in the EU and that the Council of Ministers was asking the Commission to deliver lower levels of productivity improvements than national administrations were having to make.

She said that the Council was still proposing a 3.4% increase in funding for staff compared to the Commission's request of 6%. "We're not talking about drastic measures," she said.

The ministers stressed that at the end of 2013 there would still be more staff working in the Commission than in 2007.

Although the majority of EU governments backed the Finnish presidency's productivity plan and reached an initial agreement on the 2007 budget, officials said a number of new member states expressed concern about the impact of the funding proposals on recruitment of officials from the new states.

Under the Finnish plan, only half of staff who retired by 2013, expected to be around 2,400, would be replaced. In addition, Helsinki wants a further 500 posts scrapped, giving a total of 1,700 losses. As part of an agreement between the Council and the Parliament, the Commission should by 2008 hire around 4,000 new staff from the member states that joined the EU in 2004. The Commission argues that a combination of the rate of replacement, scrapping of posts and lower funding would only allow it to hire 41 of the 801 new officials it was planning to take on next year.

The final agreement on the 2007 budget will only be reached in December once the Parliament has finalised its position and negotiated a compromise with the Council.

The Finnish presidency is planning a special meeting with Dalia Grybauskaiteú, the budget commissioner, in September to try to find a compromise after Helsinki proposed cutting 1,700 Commission posts over the next few years.

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