Thursday

28th Mar 2024

MEPs back cost-cutting on EU staff

MEPs have backed changes to working conditions for EU officials designed to save over €1 billion a year and to improve ethical standards.

The legal affairs committee in Brussels on Tuesday (25 April) voted through the new staff regulation by 19 against three with two abstentions. The Green group was the main malcontent, after its amendment on a higher tax for salaries of top officials failed to make the final cut.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

The text, based on a European Commission proposal from December, is still at an early stage of adoption in the EU process. "It will give us a stronger negotiating position with the Council [EU member states]. But it is too early to speculate when it might enter into force," a parliament official said.

The main provisions on cost-cutting include: a five percent reduction of the 55,000-or-so staff employed in the 50 EU institutions and agencies around Europe; an increase in the retirement age from 63 to 65; a hike in the mini-income-tax or "solidarity levy" on salaries from 4.23 percent to 6 percent; a new way of calculating pensions that will see lower pay-outs for staff who joined more recently; and smaller grants for people who move from their home countries to Brussels or Luxembourg.

The committee also backed a new "exception" clause for the mechanism which governs salary increases. Currently, EU officials get an automatic wage increase if national civil servants in a basket of select member states get one. But under the new rule, EU salaries can be frozen if there is a "negative macroeconomic" climate.

On the ethics front, senior officials are to be banned from lobbying their former colleagues for 12 months after leaving their post. They will also be blocked from lobbying while taking temporary personal leave.

On top of this, each institution will have to create a new "procedure" for protecting whistleblowers to make sure their complaints are handled more confidentially and more quickly.

The German centre-left MEP in charge of the dossier, Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, said her tweaks of the commission proposal will ensure there is no "lawn-mower cut" of 5 percent of staff imposed from above, but instead it will be "left to the institutions themselves to decide how they make the savings." Parliament sources previously told EUobserver the cuts will mostly affect staff on long-term sick leave or near retirement age rather than active personnel.

Austrian Green MEP Eva Lichtenberger noted: "These proposals [on lobbying and whistleblowers] would be a major step forward for the transparency and integrity of the EU administration."

Discussions leading up to Tuesday's vote saw some colourful interventions by other deputies.

Centre-right Italian MEP Raffaele Baldassare said the new rules should try breathe fresh air into a stagnant culture "of automatic promotions due to seniority."

In remarks on how to set up a new so-called "SC" staff grade for secretaries, German liberal Alexandra Thein said rules on language skills should be relaxed because it is not necessary to speak several languages to make photocopies. She noted that mostly Belgians should be hired for the relatively low-paid work, adding that if this means mainly women with few qualifications, it is not so important because most of them will have husbands who bring in a second wage.

A commission study attached to the December proposal says the savings would be modest in the early phase of adoption (some €65 million a year in 2013). But they would climb to almost €1.3 billion a year by 2060.

EU staff to go on strike

EU staff unions have reiterated their threat to go on strike after negotiations with the European Commission failed to produce an agreement on pay and pensions.

MEPs award themselves €1,500 more in staff expenses

As European citizens come to terms with the array of austerity measures being doled out across the union at the insistence of EU and international lenders, MEPs have voted to increase the money they use for expenses.

UK not the only losers in EU 'generation game'

On the streets that mark out the EU quarter, English is the most spoken language. But British nationals in the EU institutions are an increasingly endangered species.

Opinion

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us