March 18, 2020 / By mobanmarket
Member states launch legal challenge against European Commission.National governments say ‘No’ to pay-rise for EU staff
The member states of the European Union have rejected a proposal from the European Commission that officials working in the EU institutions should be awarded a payrise of 1.7% for 2011. In addition, they have decided to take the Commission to the European Court of Justice over its handling of the pay review for EU staff.
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The member states argue that the Commission should have invoked special circumstances to suspend the agreed method for calculating the annual pay adjustment of EU civil servants.
The Commission had proposed, according to a method that takes into account the pay-rises awarded to civil servants in eight member states between July 2010 and July 2011, and the change in the cost of living, that pay should be raised by 1.7% for staff in Luxembourg and Brussels.
But the member states’ deputy ambassadors to the EU met today and decided to reject the proposal. They wanted the Commission to suspend application of the method, which is permitted, according to the EU’s rules, if there is “a sudden and serious deterioration in the economic and social situation”.
The Commission argued that the conditions for triggering the clause had not been met because the economic crisis has been going on since 2008 and that was reflected in the pay adjustments of civil servants in the member states.
The two decisions were approved by a majority of member states. Belgium, Luxembourg, Romania and Portugal abstained from a vote on the decision to reject the pay award. Italy, Romania, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Belgium and Poland abstained from the decision to take the Commission to court.
The ambassadors’ decisions will be formally adopted by environment ministers meeting as the Council of Ministers on 19 December.
A spokesman for Maroš Šefčovič, the European commissioner for inter-institutional relations and administration, said that the Commission would “carefully examine the Council’s decision from a legal point of view”. He said that the Commission fully understood the need to make savings and had made proposals for staff reform that would save €1 billion. The spokesman said that the Council was tackling the need to make savings “from the wrong angle”. He contrasted the Commission’s approach which was to make savings in a “legally sound way” by proposing changes to the rules on staff pay and conditions.
The pay rise, which is below the rate of inflation in Belgium, would have applied to staff from all the EU institutions.
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