EU officials threaten diplomats with dreaded exams in pay dispute

BRUSSELS - EU trade unions have threatened to make diplomats sit entrance exams if they want to join the bloc's new foreign relations body in an escalating row over pay.

The European External Action Service (EEAS) will after April 2010 begin recruiting thousands of diplomats from EU member states to swell its ranks. The diplomats are to become "agents temporaires" or temporary EU civil servants for the duration of their Brussels posting.

Under normal EU rules, agents temporaires have to sit a tricky entrance exam consisting of general knowledge questions about the EU, a maths test, an essay and oral interviews.

EU institutions are considering plans to have more relaxed "recruitment panels" for the EEAS. But the dreaded EU entrance exam or "concours" could yet come back to haunt diplomats due to an increasingly ugly dispute over pay.

The EU Council's top delegate to the FFPE trade union, Renzo Carpenito, told EUobserver on Wednesday (16 December) that unions will block any reforms to the recruitment process unless EU member states lift their opposition to a planned pay increase for EU staff.

"They cannot change the rules without the trade unions. And we will not give our approval," he said. "This will be a strike to the limits."

The union at its Wednesday congress called a general strike for Thursday which will see many Council "working groups" suspended but which is to allow a meeting of EU transport ministers to go ahead with minimal disruption.

The move comes after a group of member states including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Poland the same day rejected compromise proposals to resolve the pay dispute.

The Swedish EU presidency had suggested that EU officials get a 3.7 percent pay hike retroactive to July 2009, but get their 2010 increase in phases and agree to a basic review of the pay rules.

"There's no more courtesy in the meetings," Mr Carpenito said on the toxic atmosphere surrounding the dispute, which could drag on into January.

The trade unions argue that EU wages have gone down in real terms since 2003 and that the blockade of the current increases is against EU law.

But the group of member states - reported by AFP to number 12 in total - claims the hikes are unacceptable to EU citizens amid the recession and rising unemployment which, in the case of some eastern European EU countries, has even seen civil service job cuts.

Spain, which has one of the worst unemployment problems in the EU, and Greece, which is on the brink of national bankruptcy, are not part of the group, however, an EU official said.