We’re all going on a summer holiday

Date: 17/07/1997

IT MAY be hard to believe, given the grey skies, chill winds and driving rain currently sweeping across most of the European Union, but holiday time is here again.

Europeans young and old are packing suitcases, dusting down swimming trunks and heading off for long-awaited summer breaks - although if the current bad weather keeps up, they will do well to pack a pair of wellington boots and several umbrellas along with the Ambre Solaire.

In amongst this happy throng will be several thousand Euro-civil servants, setting out for some much-needed rest and recuperation after another year's gruelling service in the name of European integration.

For many critics, EU fonctionnaires' generous holiday entitlements are just another aspect of the over-privileged lifestyle enjoyed by people working in the 'golden cage' of the Union's institutions.

“I certainly think that some of them deserve a break and they need it. But there are a very large number of fonctionnaires who do very little all year and then take a holiday,” said Garry Parker of UEAPME, a Brussels-based organisation which represents small and medium-sized firms across the EU.

Parker points out that many of the business people who are members of UEAPME find it hard to take any sort of holiday at all.

“I was talking to a farmer in Ireland recently who said he could only afford four days off all year and that was so that he could go to his daughter's wedding,” he said.

Faced with this discrepancy between the harsh realities of life in the private sector and what many see as the 'easy life' culture of the fonctionnaires, critics say the institutions should make more of an effort to lead by example.

“They are being paid with taxpayers' money, so they should always be available,” argued one.

But fonctionnaires' representatives complain that they are being criticised unfairly, and strongly dispute the oft-levelled allegation that they are overpaid and underworked. “To be honest, I think we do not have enough holidays,” said one staff official based at the European Parliament.

EU civil servants argue that their holiday entitlements are compatible with those of national civil servants and say they are simply taking the time off which is legally due to them. “Our holiday entitlement is normal. It was fixed 40 years ago [when the Treaty of Rome which created the European Community was signed] and it has not changed significantly since then. We are just ordinary civil servants,” explained one fonctionnaire.

Many European officials complain that they are singled out and branded as members of a favoured élite when they actually enjoy a far less privileged lifestyle than many of the national diplomats who can be found living alongside them in the leafy Brussels suburbs.

“We are an easy target. We are much more visible than the diplomatic corps, but they have many more privileges,” complained one indignant Euro-employee.

Officials say they are often the victims of political game-playing on the part of national administrations, all of whom have, from time to time, found it useful to blame 'Brussels' when being a member of the Union has proved a bit tricky on the domestic front.

“By attacking European civil servants you can attack the European institutions,” explained one employee.

However, considering the amount of flak European fonctionnaires come in for, it is actually very rare for them to respond to the golden cage allegations.

Critics have two main explanations for this almost Trappist silence. The first is the old 'no smoke without fire' argument. It is suggested that they would not come in for such intense and sustained criticism if there were no reason for it.

The second, more cynical theory is that Euro-officials simply do not care. They earn a great deal more money than most of those flinging insults at them - especially members of the journalistic profession - and on top of that they are secure in the knowledge that they have a job for life with a fat pension waiting for them at the end of it.

But fonctionnaires themselves have a much more prosaic explanation for their tight-lipped demeanour. “Every day I read something in the papers which I could respond to but I do not have time. I have to work,” said one.

One of the biggest gripes about fonctionnaires' holiday allowances, however, is not so much connected to the basic statutory entitlement - of between 24 and 30 days a year - but to all the 'extras' which can be piled on top.

Employees working for the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, the Parliament and the Courts in Luxembourg have the right to supplementary days off for a whole host of reasons, including moving house, going to a child's wedding and to celebrate the fact that they have been working in the institutions for 25 years.

In addition, they are entitled to take many Union member states' national holidays and the EU's own Schuman Day - which commemorates the 1950 speech by former French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, considered to be the origin of the modern Union.

The fact that Schuman Day and many of the national holidays fall in the month of May is a particular bugbear for anyone wishing to contact the European institutions.

For it is in May more than any other month of the year that European officials make maximum use of that most infuriating piece of holiday equipment - the infamous 'bridge'.

The principle of the bridge is simple. If there is a public holiday on a Thursday, for example, why bother coming in to work on Friday when in only 24 hours' time it will be the weekend?

The system works in reverse if the day off in question falls on a Tuesday - and some fonctionnaires have even been known to construct bridges spanning two days when they have an official break on a Wednesday.

On top of these holidays, officials are also allowed to claim one-and-a-half-hours time off for every hour of overtime they work. This rises to two hours if they work on a public holiday or a Sunday.

But despite the fact that their employees have been criticised for being away from their desks too often, the EU institutions, in fact, close down completely for very few days in the year.

The European Commission shuts its doors for around a week over Christmas and the New Year but, contrary to popular belief, it remains open - albeit with a skeleton staff - throughout the month of August. The secretariat of the Council of Ministers uses a similar system, closing over Christmas but maintaining a permanence over the summer.

The European Parliament also closes for the December-January festive season and continues to tick over on reduced power during the remaining holiday periods. However, there is no plenary session and no committee meetings in August.

The European Court of Justice has three 'judicial recesses' every year when judges take a break. The summer recess runs from the beginning of the last week in July to the end of the second week in September. ECJ judges also take a three-week break over Easter and a fortnight at Christmas.

But Court officials stress that these holidays do not apply to them and say that they continue to turn up for work when no cases are being heard.

Many critics argue that the furore surrounding fonctionnaires' holidays is in fact a red herring. They say the real problem is not so much that Euro-civil servants spend too much time away from their offices, but rather that they do not always appear to be doing a huge amount when they are in them.