Council in disarray over staff regulations
Reform delayed by quarrel between member states.
A reform of the European Union’s staff regulations is being held up in an increasingly ill-tempered quarrel between the member states, members of the European Parliament and the European Commission.
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The regulations set the employment conditions for the Union’s officials, and the debate has become so political that diplomats now believe a deal may be reached only at a special summit of member states’ leaders in November. That meeting is intended to seal an agreement on the EU’s multi-annual financial framework for 2014-2020, and a grand bargain on the EU’s long-term spending plan – which sets the overall ceiling for the EU’s administrative expenditure – could break the stalemate over the staff regulations, even though the two issues are not formally linked.
The Commission says that its proposal, adopted in January, will save €1 billion by 2020, through raising the retirement age of officials from 63 to 67, cutting staff by 5%, and increasing working hours. But these savings are seen as insufficient by a group of member states led by France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
In a confidential note transmitted to the European Commission last week (17 September), the group – which also includes Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden – demanded calculations on how cost savings of €5bn, €10bn and €15bn could be achieved through tougher measures.
“We have asked the Commission on various occasions to provide a more thorough and detailed financial impact assessment of its proposal,” the note says.
“We have also requested that the Commission provide us with models demonstrating how its proposal will result in cost savings. These requests have still not been met, making it difficult for the Council to arrive at an informed opinion on the review of the staff regulations.”
Parliament and Commission officials view such drastic cuts as unrealistic and disproportionate to savings sought by member states in other policy areas of the MFF, above all agricultural and regional spending. They say that the Council is in “disarray” and “unable to agree its position”.
MEPs are also angry with what they see as a lack of co-operation from the member states about the conditions of national civil servants. In July, Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, wrote to Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, Denmark’s permanent representative to the EU, to express his “utmost dissatisfaction” with data provided by Denmark – then the holder of the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. Schulz wrote that he was “astonished at the lack of transparency and institutional respect that you and your colleagues have shown”.
A spokesman for Maroš Šefcovic, the European commissioner for inter-institutional relations and administration, said, referring to Parliament and Council: “We urge both co-legislators to deal with this as soon as possible and to strike a deal before the end of the year.”
