First trilogue on Staff Regulations

COM(2011) 890 – 2011/0455 (COD)
Brussels, 13 May 2013
Participants:
-  EP: Mr LEHNE (PPE/DE), Chair of the JURI committee,        
Ms ROTH-BEHRENDT (S&D/DE), rapporteur,          
Mr BALDASSARRE (EPP/IT), shadow,        
Ms WIKSTRÖM (ALDE/SE), shadow,          
Mr SPERONI (EFD/IT), shadow
- Council Presidency: Mr MONTGOMERY, Irish Permanent Representative,       
Representatives of the Irish Presidency, the future Lithuanian Presidency and the Council Secretariat
- Commission: Vice-President ŠEFCOVIC         
Ms SOUKA, Mr FRUTUOSO DE MELO, Mr LEVASSEUR, Mr ROQUES (DG HR)       
Mr NOCIAR, Ms PRADINES, Mr LINDER (Mr ŠEFCOVIC's cabinet)

Summary:

The first trilogue meeting on Staff Regulations confirmed the gap that exists between the positions of Parliament and Council on major issues such as pensions. However, there was also agreement to start negotiations on the future method for adjusting salaries at technical level. The Irish Council Presidency indicated they would report back to Coreper and ask for a mandate. The second trilogue is envisaged for 28 May, and will be prepared by meetings on working level over the next two weeks.

Detail:

The meeting followed on the MFF trilogue that took place earlier in the evening. The Irish Permanent Representative, Mr MONTGOMERY, went through the elements of the Coreper mandate (the method for adjusting salaries, pensions and career structure).

Rapporteur ROTH-BEHRENDT, supported by Chairman LEHNE, heavily criticised the Presidency for the mandate presented – and for the fact that it had taken the Council side over a year to react to the JURI committee vote on her report. She confirmed there would be no result on MFF without a result on Staff Regulations.
She also warned against reopening the February 2013 European Council conclusions on administrative expenditure and the agreement reached between Presidents Barroso and Schulz and Taoiseach Kenny in their meeting on 6 May. However, she signalled that Parliament was willing to go ahead, and proposed to start talks on the future method over the forthcoming weeks.

Vice-President ŠEFCOVIC thanked the rapporteur for her work, and warned the Presidency against reopening the deal. He considered that what the Council Working Party had come up with after two years of internal discussions was "totally unacceptable" and unfit as a basis for negotiations, and criticised the mandate as inconsistent.
He also recalled the possibility for the Commission to withdraw its proposal in case of any denaturalisation of its original proposal. He however indicated that the Commission was ready to start discussions, and invited colegislators to enter into talks on the basis of its proposal and on those technical issues on which they could agree to negotiate, such as transparency, automaticity, the parallelism to salary evolution in Member States and the need for an exception clause, even if there were still substantial disagreements on some of these.

Next steps:
Next (second) trilogue: 28 May (5 p.m. - 7 p.m.)  
One or several technical meeting(s) envisaged to prepare that trilogue (possibly 17 and 24 May – tbc)      
Further possible trilogues (as envisaged by EP, tbc) on 3, 11, 18 June