De plus, le Collège n'a pas levé tous les doutes concernant le Pacte de Confiance que lui demandaient les syndicats à savoir:

• promettre qu'il les associerait à temps aux stades ultérieurs des négociations au PE et au Conseil;

• promettre de défendre les acquis des négociations avec les syndicats notamment en matière de lutte contre la précarité;

• enfin, s'engager de retirer la proposition en cas d'aggravation de celle ci par le Conseil.

Tout en continuant à exiger le pacte de Confiance, les syndicats doivent maintenant agir au niveau du PE pour que celui-ci défende l'attractivité de la fonction publique européenne et sa capacité d'action, ce qui implique le refus de toute aggravation de la proposition de la Commission et le refus d'une réduction des effectifs.

Cette bataille n'est pas égoïste. Il n'y a pas pour sortir de la crise des solutions nationales.

Les solutions intergouvernementales, notamment celles qui entraînent l'affaiblissement de la Commission, ont échoué et continuent de montrer leurs limites, le cas de la crise financière étant significatif de ce point de vue.

Cette lutte pour promouvoir l'attractivité et la capacité d'agir de la fonction publique européenne, nous devons la mener dans l'unité, mais aussi dans la clarté, ce qui suppose de tenir constamment informé le personnel des termes du débat intersyndical.

La Commission a essuyé ce refus alors même qu'elle venait d'adopter sa proposition de révision du statut qui dénature une fois encore les droits et obligations des fonctionnaires de l'UE, afin précisément d'obtenir une méthode d'adaptation, que les États membres se refusent d'appliquer. Il est bien clair que le Collège devra s'expliquer à propos de sa stratégie auprès du personnel et envisager sérieusement le retrait de cette proposition, en cas de dérapage du Conseil, alors que ce mécanisme ne garantit même plus le pouvoir d'achat des collègues.

La question qu'on doit se pose aujourd'hui est d'ailleurs la suivante: à quoi sert encore une méthode d'adaptation des salaires, si ce n'est à dégrader le statut, tous les 7/8 ans? Il aurait été nécessaire de se poser la question, avant d'introduire une proposition de révision du statut.

Pour ce qui concerne l'adaptation 2011, que va-t-il se passer maintenant ?

Lors de sa réunion de rentrée, le Collège a décidé d'introduire un recours contre le Conseil, dont a été chargé le Service Juridique. La difficulté dans cette affaire est de qualifier l'action des États membres dans cette affaire: le Conseil a-t-il rejeté la proposition? A-t-il adopté une non-décision? S'est-il abstenu de décider ou a-t-il adopté une déclaration d'intention? Finalement, cela n'a que peu d'importance, les États membres, une fois encore, ont montré leur mépris, à l'égard de la Commission, des institutions et du personnel de l'Union européenne.

Le Service Juridique de la Commission a introduit en fait deux recours pour couvrir l'ensemble des hypothèses sur la table.

1- Pour le cas où le Conseil aurait formellement rejeté la proposition de la Commission ou adopté une non-décision, la Commission a introduit un recours en illégalité, au titre de l'article 263 TFUE. L'exécutif communautaire considère que le Conseil a violé les articles 65 du statut et 3 de l'annexe XI du statut. Le Conseil n'a pas adapté les rémunérations sur base de la proposition de la Commission, alors qu'elle a démontré dans deux rapports, avec force détails, que la situation économique de l'UE ne s'est pas détériorée de manière grave et soudaine, en 2011, et que par conséquent, il n'y avait pas lieu de déclencher la clause d'exception de l'article 10 de l'annexe XI, dont l'objet est de ne pas appliquer d'adaptation.

Pour la Commission, il ne fait pas de doute que la compétence d'apprécier des conditions de la situation économique dans l'Union européenne, lui appartient, en application des traités communautaires. Par conséquent, elle n'a pas outrepassé ses compétences en décidant de ne pas proposer de déclencher la clause d'exception de l'annexe XI sur base des 17 critères analysés dans ces deux rapports successifs, à propos de cette clause. Sur base de ces documents, elle n'a pas non plus commis d'erreur de jugement ou d'erreur manifeste d'appréciation.

En l'absence de proposition de la Commission de déclencher la clause d'exception, le Conseil ne pouvait refuser d'adapter les rémunérations et d'adopter les résultats qui découlent du mécanisme de l'annexe XI.

Par ailleurs, si la Commission avait proposé de déclencher la clause d'exception, dans le cadre des deux rapports sur la situation économique adoptés en 2011, elle n'aurait pas pu être adoptée par le Conseil seul, mais bien en codécision avec le Parlement européen, au titre de l'article 336 TFUE.

2- Pour le cas où l'attitude du Conseil pourrait être considérée comme une absence de décision, la Commission a adressé une invitation formelle aux États membres de décider sur sa proposition d'adaptation des rémunérations, au titre de l'article 265 TFUE. En l'absence d'action, la Commission pourra introduire un recours formel en carence.

De cette manière, le Service Juridique de la Commission a couvert l'ensemble des hypothèses liées à cette affaire.

Il serait également utile que les autres institutions de l'UE interviennent formellement dans cette affaire, aux côtés de la Commission, et plus particulièrement le Parlement européen qui est acteur de la codécision.

Les États membres introduisent également un recours contre la Commission

D'après nos informations, le Conseil a chargé son service juridique de préparer un recours contre la Commission, à l'initiative des autorités françaises. Toutefois, on doit noter que ce recours n'a pas été décidé à la majorité qualifiée, mais à la majorité simple. La Cour devra examiner les conditions d'adoption du recours dans le contexte de l'examen de la recevabilité, car, en principe, pour les questions de substance, le recours doit être adopté à la majorité qualifiée.

Le recours des États membres sera-t-il fondé sur une supposée illégalité commise par la Commission ou par la carence de la Commission (absence de proposition concernant le déclenchement de la clause d'exception)? Finalement, sur ce point, la stratégie du Conseil n'a que peu d'importance. Il est probable qu'il plaidera l'erreur manifeste d'appréciation de la Commission par rapport à la situation économique, ce qui est contredit par les deux rapports adoptés par la Commission sur ce point.

Comment la Cour va-t-elle examiner ces deux recours?

En présence de trois recours sur la même affaire, il est probable qu'elle va joindre ces recours ou bien, au moins, organiser une audience commune, avec plusieurs volets.

Et les éventuelles réclamations du personnel?

Quant au personnel, certains syndicats proposent d'introduire des réclamations. Elles ne sont d'aucune utilité, puisqu'elles sont adressées au Tribunal de la fonction publique européenne, qui va les mettre de côté, le temps que la Cour décide sur les recours institutionnels. En encombrant la DG HR et le SJ de la Commission, elles risquent d'encombrer ces services, avec les obligations qui découlent de la gestion de ces réclamations, les empêchant de se concentrer sur les questions de fonds. On doit souligner que dans ce cas-ci, ces actions démagogiques peuvent avoir des conséquences négatives.

Pour ce qui concerne les indemnités de retard, elles sont accordées d'office dans un telle affaire. La Commission les appliquera donc automatiquement si le Conseil est débouté.

Le point sur le dossier de l'adaptation de la contribution pension, au titre de 2011 (-0,6%)

Sur base du statut, l'équilibre actuariel du régime de pensions des personnels communautaires est maintenu en faisant varier l'âge de la pension ou le contribution. Les paramètres de calcul sont prévus à l'annexe XII du statut.

Toujours en raison de la situation économique et du déchaînement des États membres à propos de notre fonction publique, le Conseil n'a pas adapté la proposition de la Commission de diminuer la contribution pension.

Le Service Juridique du Conseil, à l'instar de la Commission, considère que le Conseil doit adopter cette révision qui repose sur des calculs découlant de critère objectifs connus et transparents.

Encore une fois, lors du CoRePer du 20 janvier 2012, le Conseil n'a pas réussi à prendre une décision, en l'absence de majorité qualifiée, alors que cette révision aurait dû être adoptée, en principe, avant la fin du mois de décembre 2011 (Quand il s'agit d'adopter une augmentation du taux de contribution, ce type de problème n'existe pas). Or, le Conseil doit adapter la contribution pour équilibrer le régime. En effet, il n'est pas prévu que le régime de fonds fictif soit en suréquilibre.

Il est clair que si le délai d'adoption de la proposition de modification de la contribution pension par le Conseil n'est pas fixé de manière précise, cette adoption doit se faire dans un délai raisonnable.

En l'absence de décision du Conseil, en février, la Commission, devra sans doute adresser une mise en demeure au Conseil, au titre de l'article 265 TFUE, et par la suite introduire en recours en carence contre le Conseil, pour faire respecter le droit.

Le personnel compte sur l'attitude responsable de la Commission également dans cette affaire, à l'instar de son approche dans le domaine des rémunérations.

Pour conclure, U4U considère comme nécessaire que la Commission analyse avec les OSP une nouvelle fois l'opportunité de maintenir sa proposition de révision du statut, au vu du refus actuel des États membres d'adopter les adaptations 2011qui découlent de la méthode de 2004, payée très chèrement par des réductions de droits des collègues.

Faut-il diminuer les droits des fonctionnaires une nouvelle fois, en 2013, en échange d'une nouvelle méthode que les États membres n'appliquent pas aujourd'hui? Cette question est sur la table!

Très bien !

Sauf que les hypothèses de départ sont de réduire les effectifs (5 à 15%), le nombre d’unités (9 en moins) et 1 direction en moins.

Les débats promettent d’être passionnants entre collègues qui risquent de perdre leurs fonctions actuelles !

Calendrier de la réorganisation à DG INFSO.

1) Rotation d’AD prévue en Février 2012
2) Réorganisation visant à réduire les effectifs de 5 à 15% et le nombre d'unités de 17%. Consultation en Février et effective avant l'été 2012.
3) Réorganisation visant à externaliser 30 à 60% des effectifs associés aux activités de recherche. Mise en place progressive durant 2013. Effective pour le démarrage d'Horizon 2020.

Comme suite à la réunion organisée le 25 Janvier 2012 à Beaulieu et face à l’inquiétude de nombreux collègues de la DG INFSO, U4U propose la création d’une Task Force (Ou Collectif) du personnel (INFSO Bruxelles et Luxembourg).

Cette Task Force recueillera les informations disponibles, préparera des contre-propositions, veillera à la stricte application des règles de protection du personnel pour la réorganisation, conseillera les collègues et communiquera au Comité du personnel les informations utiles à son action.

Votre participation est indispensable au succès de cette initiative. Veuillez contacter le représentant de U4U à la DG INFSO, Jacques Babot (confidentialité assurée).

Suivant l'évolution de la situation, U4U organisera prochainement une Assemblée Générale du personnel et demandera aussi une rencontre avec le Directeur Général.

There are currently rumours (again) in DG Research and Innovation (RTDI) that reorganisation will soon take place. The last one took effect on 1 January 2011 and concerned about 500 staff directly, i.e. a quarter of the total staff. It had two main causes.

• One was that the new Commissioner and the new Director General, with all legitimacy, wanted to impress their new policies on innovation and the European Research Area on the flow chart.

• The second is less glamorous but nonetheless constraining: DG RTDI had to give back to DG HR two posts of Directors and several posts of Heads of Unit.

The reorganisation also entailed a pinch of individual matters as removing or moving staff always carries a whole series of potentially hard negotiations and curious solutions: the higher ranked and the most senior staff displeased by the proposed moves often asked for more tailor-made solutions to their seniority. The remaining staff was moved following deals between Directors and Heads of Unit but, if unhappy, individuals could always make their wish for mobility known to a “chambre d’écoute” which attempted to find adequate solutions. The “chambre d’écoute” was managed directly by the HR unit and was the place for a number of complex behind the door arrangements where it was never really clear who played what game: efficiency (for whom exactly?) rather than openness was the motto.

But more complex: externalisation as a target

The next reorganisation will certainly not diverge much from this scenario. It might be further complicated by the following several new elements.

(1) The overall removal of DG RTDI from its historical headquarters at Square de Meuûs to yet an unknown or two unknown locations in Brussels. Managing this symbolic change with due care has been well understood, it seems.

(2) The rush by senior management to meet the Commission minus 5% target in staff numbers: interestingly, senior management everywhere do not seem to resist this request but rather support and anticipate it. DG RTDI is no exception but is has the disadvantage of being an obvious casualty because it has more than 2000 staff and will find hard to justify such a high number of staff anyway: being big today often looks like a sign of poor efficiency.

(3) “Externalisation” is also on the agenda because it is meant to bring further cost reductions in the management of the European Framework Programme for Research. Several solutions for externalisation are already looked at by an internal group in DG RTDI but is seems that the easiest solution is to create a new executive agency or broaden the remit of the existing ones called European Research Council Executive Agency (ERCEA) and Research Executive Agency (REA)¹. It should be noted that, for the last 10 years, the number of staff working on FP management has already been drastically reduced while, at the same time, the number of staff working on policy development for the European Research Area (since 2000) and the various control functions of budgets and finance (planning, auditing, internal control standards…) (since the financial and budgetary reforms of the Commission in 2000) has increased a lot. This means that only a part of functions in DG RTDI could be “externalised”². Or should the two functions of policy development and control of the FP be considered as good for externalisation as well?

Thus, all seems to indicate that the next reorganisation will be radical. The starting point is that economies should be made, efficiency should be gained and that all solutions in this regard should be looked at. It seems that an a priori decision has been made to use “externalisation”. This should be called into question because:

- It is as if the current system was unable to change, therefore only “external” solutions are good. True, DG RTDI looks a bit like an old unchangeable dungeon but if you look at it more closely you’ll see that it has succeeded in managing the rising costs of the FP with the same number or even less staff: in other words, DG RTDI has got bigger over the last 10 years because of the rising ERA policy and the “need” to increase the audit activities over the FP management, not because of FP management itself. It would thus be interesting to see the reasons for this “success”, i.e. how the management of the FP has evolved over the last 10 years and which useful lessons could be drawn. However, no systematic external evaluation of FP management has been done (apart from the Court of Auditors numerous reports on “acceptable error rates” in financial management of declared costs, a useful but very limited view of the process³) and of course no internal evaluation has been made either, which, in a way, shows the rather low priority given now to FP management in DG RTDI. A number of internal working groups made up of experienced Heads of Units, Directors and other AD staff were appointed over the last 10 years but their conclusions were never taken into account⁴, thus adding to frustration but also to the general uneasy feeling that RTDI cannot be reformed from within because it is made up of independent kingdoms (i.e. Directorates)⁵.

- As a now abundant literature shows, even if the costs of contractual staff in executive agencies are allegedly significantly lower, the creation of the agency carries at the same time new costs in terms of: (1) duplication of central functions, (2) need for increased tools of coordination in case of good collaboration between the DG and the agency (“joined-up government”), (3) competition between the DG and its executive agency since the illusion of separating management from policy can significantly weaken the core policy tasks kept by the DG.

Is externalisation the only solution?

Let’s see whether externalisation at DG RTDI can be handled intelligently and whether there are alternatives. The obvious area for economies and gains of efficiency in DG RTDI is the management of the Framework Programme (FP): in 2011, 10 billion Euros were managed by DG RTDI (1720 staff), ERCEA (360 staff) and REA (468 staff).

Let’s face a first difficulty: there is no public figure on which levels of economy or efficiency have been brought by the creation of ERC and REA since their creation at the beginning of FP7 back in 2007. Agencies are supposed to be cheaper because they use more contractual agents: but what if the total number of staff in agencies exceeds the original number of staff in DG RTDI? The creation of the two agencies has meant the duplication of central functions, for instance three HR units and three IT units, hence duplication rather than rationalisation. And nothing is said about the impact of the agency work on the European researchers themselves. The first steps by the ERCEA and REA were marked by natural learning difficulties and since then, if things have been much better, there is no indication that their service has been any better (or cheaper) than the same services provided by DG RTDI in the past. A special Court of Auditors report of November 2009 on executive agencies presented generally positive findings but of course ERCEA and REA were too recent to be fully audited. Evaluations of ERCEA and REA are expected by mid or end of 2012. So far, it is thus rather assumed than proved that executive agencies are less costly than Commission services.

The second difficulty is how to delineate borders between the central DG and the executive agencies. The choice under FP7 was to have one procedural agency (REA) and one sectoral agency (ERCEA is a chunk of FP7 dealing with “excellence” in science; procedural matters such as evaluations, management of the ERC grants, are also taken care of by ERCEA itself and not by REA). One could for instance imagine that some chunks of Horizon 2020, such as the research on environment, the research on ageing for instance, could be hived off to new joint undertakings or executive agencies. But the multiplication in the number of such bodies would inevitably increase the complexity of the coordination and the duplication of common horizontal activities: gains from cheap labour would be rapidly offset by soaring structural costs. The alternative is to reinforce ERCEA and REA. The ERCEA is likely to see its budget grow under Horizon 2020 between 2014 and 2020 because it is considered as a success by everybody⁶. This means that the corresponding resources could be given but with some restriction as ERCEA would have to follow the same austerity rules as the other Commission services.

What about externalisation to REA? That could be done in two ways:

• Giving more competences to REA in terms of evaluations of proposals. REA is already very much in control of this procedure but its competences could still be expanded further in terms, for instance, of programmes, of management of expert evaluators with IT tools (EMI), of checks of conflicts of interest of experts, etc etc, which still need some resources in DG RTDI in Operational Units. In the same vein, more competences could be given to REA in terms of the management of all kinds of experts; DG RTDI also manages a lot of different kinds of experts for various kinds of meetings or tasks (such as reviews of projects, evaluations etc.). Altogether, in 2011 DG RTDI managed XXX such experts, implying a large number of assistants and secretaries in operational units and in the central budget unit.

• Giving more competences to REA in terms of negotiation and management of Framework Programme projects would bring much more impressive savings because it would enable the transfer of all competences from the Administrative and Financial Units (UAF) and some of the AST and contractual agents GFII and GF III competences of the Operational Units (UO) towards REA. In this case, we accept that the “scientific competence” of Project Officers currently posted in UOs would remain in DG RTDI because the motto of externalisation is that only “management” is hived off while core policy competences are kept centrally. To illustrate this, the AD or GF IV Project Officer in charge of a research portfolio on photovoltaic energy in an UO would remain in DG RTDI because his/her scientific competences in the domain remain essential for the development of energy policy, whereas the Legal and Financial Officers in the corresponding UAF and possibly his or her assistant in the UO could go to REA. We are talking here about a much bigger externalisation, potentially implying several hundred staff.

Theory and reality: what can be done without rocking the boat?

This is the theory. What about the real world? Are such externalisation plans realistic? Previous large reorganisations like the one of DG RELEX and DG DEV into EEAS just prove that the Commission is ill-equipped to deal with such large exercises. In particular, the reorganisation is left to each DG to plan and implement but it is notorious that the competences for this kind of exercise is non-existent in most DGs. Suffice it to say that the Directors for Resources and the Heads of Unit for HR in the DGs are seldom educated in and appointed for their competence in budgets or HR but rather for every other reason of old-style political and management expediency. In other words, most DGs HR matters are run by people who, even though they certainly have a lot of good will, have little idea whatsoever of what professional HR management means… Reorganising 1700 people should be based on some professional HR competence. In fact, reorganisations are inevitably delegated to some AD and AST staff with little hierarchical support… and often with little competence and resources too. In the case of the creation of ERCEA and REA back in 2007, these two agencies were largely left alone to develop their own tools and methods without much guidance or help by DG RTD. As a consequence they muddled through the mess thanks to then hefty budgets and early day enthusiasm. Besides, little memory of reorganisations procedures is left between each reorganisation since staff mobility in the HR units themselves has often killed administrative memory: the last reorganisation of DG RTD in 2011 is a glaring example of how good practices of past reorganisations had been lost. This means that if the next reorganisation of DG RTDI is simply seen as a routine exercise, using “les moyens du bord”, it will inevitably cause much disorganisation, whether externalisation or not.

Or could it be an opportunity for some deeper reordering and fixing of problems? There is no doubt that some rationalisation of tasks between DG RTDI and the executive agencies could achieve welcome economies: extending the role of REA for evaluation procedures and payment of all kinds of experts would make sense. But hiving off the negotiation and management of the FP projects would be quite another matter. Three problems deserve attention:

• The first is the risk of major disruptions in FP project negotiation and management given the poor quality of the management of change by central HR and budget departments in DG RTDI. The competences and the memory of these projects would have to go block to block to REA. Not easy to organise since the move is likely to trigger some panic among staff. Besides, if people move with their competences and memory, then economies become doubtful, since roughly the same number of people with the same Statute profile will continue to work at the Agency.

• The second is actually the mobility of core competences from DG RTDI to REA. It is often an illusion to think that if you externalise the management you keep a firm hand on content. There are numerous contrary examples at the national level but also at the European level with decentralised agencies. Not to go very far, ERCEA has become a totally independent body with its own policy on which DG RTDI has now little to say because it knows so little about what ERCEA does and how.

• The third is the transaction cost problem, i.e. how do we manage technical issues, such as for instance a difficult amendment to a project, between two separate administrative bodies. Relationships between UAF and UOs have not always been easy, far from it, what now between central and externalised services being also separated physically?

Some suggestions to improve efficiency

This is why other internal alternatives should be studied and worked out carefully, taking into account (1) the organisation between UAF and central units (2) the impact of the reorganisation on the working of the administrative units; (3) the competences of the Project Officers. Let’s see briefly how.

(1) What is remarkable about DG RTDI is that, even though all people involved in FP management work with the same set of legal rules (that of the FP and its “rules of participation”), there is still very little agreement on the interpretation and application of these rules. In other words, much time is spent in each Directorate in wondering how rules should exactly apply.

• As 10 operational Directorates are applying FP rules, it is obvious that some central effective mechanism should be available to solve such issues. It is notorious that the central legal unit in Directorate A does not do that job and communicates only at times on “big issues” and therefore leaves each decentralised UAF to muddle through: the result is an incredible waste of time and resources in each UAF to know what the rule exactly is and, of course, as a matter of concern, you often hear researchers outside that the same rule is hardly implemented evenly by the various UAF…

• Another formidable example of such administrative curiosity is the preparation of tenders in DG RTDI. It is left to each Directorate (UAF for the legal part and UO for the content part) to prepare the tenders and they are then controlled centrally through a complex series of internal bodies. The daunting reputation of the complexity of tenders is such that nobody wants to prepare them and it is not rare that they are prepared by the inexperienced new contractual agents who happen not to know much about this reputation. Lifting up all the preparation of tenders to the central budget unit in Directorate R with their competent staff (of course with the necessary cooperation from the UOs in terms of scientific content) would entail great efficiency gains.

(2) A golden rule in reorganisations should be that you don’t break what works. Precisely, you should leave together Units which have cooperated well and have had good results. That is obviously lost of sight when you start playing with all sorts of different criteria. The last reorganisation is a counter-example since two operational units from the former Directorate L were cut off from their UAF and associated to a new UAF with totally different practices, thus creating enormous problems and frustration internally and externally. Now, why is it that a UAF has totally different practices this is one mystery of DG RTDI as explained above in (1). Ideally you should have strong central mechanisms for the circulation of legal information and problem solving together with a fine attention to good working cooperation.

(3) Staff in DG RTDI is not less competent than in other DGS but it can be used much better⁷, which would enhance motivation. Since years there have been thorny discussions in DG RTDI as to whether Project Officers have sufficient scientific skills (if so they should be relieved from management of projects) or not (if so they have to become managers of projects from A to Z). The reality is somewhat independent from that debate since in practice Project Officers have to do both management and policy development. But they end up doing both of it badly because they have often too few management skills (they have a scientific background which does not give them any specific competence in management, a bit like the HR staff in the DG) and too little experience in policy development (since they spend a lot of time managing projects and not getting knowledgeable in other relevant Commission policies). If DG RTDI were coherent, it would use immediately the scientific competences of its Project Officers and then try to train them into more policy development skills. The basic surprise here is that DG RTDI is sitting on a golden mine of project research but that it is largely unable to dig the nuggets and feed them into policy. An internal group report observed in October 2008 that “Project Officers only use 10 to 15% of their working time to do policy work and the development of research strategy”. In other words, valorisation of research results is virtually non-existent because competences are not used nor developed adequately. However, such valorisation should be the bread and butter of DG RTDI in its European research policy. Conversely, if Project Officers were left to do such policy development, this means that the role of the UAF should be enhanced and rationalised to cover all FP procedures and that Project Officers would have to follow the management of procedures imposed by UAF.

These three suggestions are only examples and other ideas (on the role of IT or the role of internal audit, control and planning functions which also consume a lot of manpower) would certainly be worth considering. The main message is that rather than to turn blindly to externalisation as a magic fetish for savings and efficiency gains, some thought should be given to internal reform and reordering. Of course internal reordering is less easy because you deal with officials and established practices and habits rather than with contractual agents and situations that will be handled elsewhere by an executive agency. But externalisation might be equivalent to turning a blind eye to its own practices and that is never a good start for a sea change. Other DGs will soon be entering the same process: are we going to say in five years time like today, that reorganisations are systematically badly handled by the Commission or that there is hope on the horizon?

Footnotes :

1 Since 2007, DG RTDI and the wider research family DGs have also created 7 joint undertakings (like F4E for ITER, IMI, ARTEMIS, ENIAC, SESAR) which totaled a number of 390 staff by the end of 2010 for an authorized establishment plan of 505 posts. Joint Undertakings however are more independent that executive agencies, especially in terms of defining their own work programs, and there is obvious reluctance in DG RTDI to support this kind of externalisation.
2 An internal working group on “”The roles and tasks of Project Officers” reported in October 2008 that these Project Officers represented only 18,5% of the staff, thus reflecting that other functions outside FP management had greatly increased since 2000.
3 And a very distorting one if one recalls that, after 2005, the impossibility for years by DG RTDI to get an acceptable evaluation by the Court of Auditors on this rate of error on declared costs pushed the then Director General to increase controls and recruit more auditors and therefore divert more staff from actual FP management. Nobody has ever thought that the services could improve and that this problem could also have been solved by other means like reorganization of services, simplification of rules, better recruitment and better use of competences for instance.
4 The last report of such a group dates back to October 2008.
5 The impossibility to work out a more objective distribution of staff across Directorates in the establishment plan is yet another symptom of this resistance to change.
6 That it is a strictly European success is another matter since the ERC gives individual grants to excellent researchers. The definition of a European extra value in attributing the grant is largely non-existent. As such the ERC scheme is a major exception to the tradition of European cooperative research which makes the hallmark of the Framework Programme. What is European research? Not the areas of research or the disciplines of course but the way research is made, i.e. by teams of national researchers joining up in common research projects. The idea of mobility which (with redistribution and competition) is at the core of the European policies, in particular the research policy, is absent from the ERC scheme.
7 Here we leave aside the issue of recruitment of competent staff at the Commission which calls into question the overall recruitment process by the Commission. This would deserve a separate article in itself which would run from EPSO policies through the role of DG HR, the incredible lack of reliable and effectively linked IT tools, the lack of HR scanning and planning in DGs etc etc.

 
Everyone join at the General Assembly of the Contract Agent Collective in Brussels

February 17, 2012, Charlemagne Room S3, 12:30

The Collective was created two years ago to fight against job insecurity in the Commission and in other institutions and agencies.

Job insecurity harms the stability of the European civil service; it causes loss of knowledge and know-how, is harmful to employees and creates disparities among staff.

The Contract Agent Collective denounced the precarious situation of many of our colleagues and launched a petition that gathered 6500 signatures.

It also brought together over 700 contract agents during a General Assembly held on February 17, 2011, including colleagues from Ispra and Luxembourg, and, managed to sensitize different trade unions on its objectives.

The result of these actions are that contract agents will now benefit from fixed term contracts for up to six years as well as the organisation of internal competitions. These issues were discussed during the negotiations concerning the reform of the staff regulations.  They are now included in the final proposal of the reform that will be discussed with the Council and Parliament.

Since then, the Collective has obtained, with the support of the trade unions, an agreement in principle by the Commission to put into place transitional measures in order for contractual staff currently in place to benefit from the extension of contracts.

The General Assembly on 17 February 2012 aims to gather support for the proposals concerning contract agents contained in the proposed reform, and to prevent that the Council and Parliament withdraw them.

Similarly, mobilization of staff members affected by this reform is essential in order to hold internal competitions as soon as the reforms are adopted.

Finally, the assembly should encourage the rapid adoption of transitional measures for the staff that is currently in place but whose contracts end before the adoption of the new staff regulations.

Our actions have already significantly reduced the issue of job insecurity at the Commission, encouraged the unity of staff and defended the excellence and continuity of the European civil service.

We now need to obtain guarantees for:

-        holding internal competitions as soon as the new staff regulations are adopted; the number of positions available should be significant;

-        adopting transitional administrative arrangements for maintaining contract agents whose contracts expire before the adoption of the new staff regulations, in order for them to benefit from any progress in the negotiations.

Organized by U4U (Union for Unity), USHU (Union syndicale hors Union) and US CESE/CdR (Unité syndicale) with the support of the Platform for Solidarity in Europe and R&D (Renouveau & Démocratie)

Fête
pour une Europe solidaire

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Elle se tiendra dans la grande salle du CCP, loi 80, 2ème étage. Entrée libre.

 Le programme complet sera prochainement annoncé sur le site de la Plateforme.

The Conference of Presidents agreed on the following mandate : - all agreements will have to be based on the treaties and community law - all action to be taken under those agreements will have to respect the secondary law (codecision). It was agreed to vote a comprehensive resolution on the EP alternative plan to fight against crisis during the Brussels mini-session of 1/2 February 2012.

Guy Verhofstadt : “The new Treaty, which has to be formalised by March, must be based on the Community method, guarantee full respect for the Community Institutions (especially Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice) and perfect compatibility with the Lisbon Treaty.”

Daniel Cohn-Bendit “Il est grand temps de tirer les leçons des échecs liés à l’éternelle méthode intergouvernementale de réforme des traités qui se résume le plus souvent à un exercice de colmatage sans perspective pour l’Union européenne. Nous devons entamer une réforme globale qui aille clairement dans le sens d’un renforcement des politiques communautaires et élargir le spectre de la participation démocratique en instaurant une nouvelle convention”

The European trade union movement called for all its members to take action in protest at the new fiscal intergovernmental agreement among 26 member states which the unions say “institutionalises austerity”.

In the face of a worsening economic and social situation and with more and more European leaders making austerity their only response, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has called for a European day of action on 29 February, the day before the European Council. This is a project that has united all the trade unions against it, stated Brendan Barber, Secretary General of the powerful Trade Union Congress (TUC). He says that, instead of promoting growth, it will lock Europe in a policy of austerity and, furthermore, will deprive citizens of their right to choose another policy.

Trade unionists will demonstrate throughout Europe for jobs and social justice to be placed at the heart of political priorities. The slogan for the European day of action on 29 February is “Enough is enough”.

The following day, 1st March, the European Council is due to meet in Brussels to sign the treaty to strengthen budgetary discipline in the EU.

• Préparation aux épreuves d'évaluation pour AST

• Préparations aux tests de présélection pour les concours de niveau AD

• Découverte des assessment centres pour AD

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Qu’il est loin le confort de travail tel qu’on le trouve dans certains bureaux dans le privé ou dans le secteur public des États Membres !

La chasse aux coûts est lancée depuis longtemps et se révèle dans les moindres aspects de la vie au bureau.

Chauffage :

Alors que cet hiver est doux, ce n’est plus seulement le lundi que l’on a froid dans les bureaux, mais il faut dorénavant compter jusqu’au mardi dans l’après-midi pour avoir une température acceptable – on ne compte pas les personnes qui travaillent avec manteau et bonnet sur la tête (si, si,) tant le fait de relancer le chauffage après la coupure du week-end prend du temps ; emmener sa chaufferette électrique au bureau est monnaie courante. Porter ses bottes fourrées, d’aucune utilité à l’extérieur, prévient les pieds glacés quand on a l’infortune de travailler au rez-de-chaussée. Il reste juste les mains glacées, à quand les mitaines (ces gants dont les bouts des doigts ont été coupés) comme faisant partie de l’uniforme du valeureux employé européen ? Et les mains justement, inutile de penser se les réchauffer en se les lavant aux éviers des sanitaires : l’eau y est… glacée !

Le coût de fonctionnement de chaque bâtiment devait diminuer de tant de pourcents cette année, les gestionnaires vont sans doute atteindre leurs objectifs. On peut par contre se poser la question du coût des chaufferettes (une heure de fonctionnement est 1 ou 2 kw !)

Fournitures :

La liste des fournitures propose le matériel strictement indispensable et toujours sous la marque du revendeur. Chaque personne doit s’approvisionner via une commande individuelle avec copie au chef d’unité pour éviter les commandes de convenance personnelle.

Le revendeur procure du matériel de seconde qualité, les bics par exemples ont une durée de vie très courte, l’efficacité financière de ce choix reste à prouver.

La plupart des unités ont cependant une armoire à fournitures avec toutes les fournitures de réemploi où les gens viennent s’approvisionner. Nous récupérons aussi les fournitures utilisées par les partenaires extérieurs lors de l’envoi de leurs rapports. Les classeurs sont dûment réemployés.

Il semble qu’il y ait peu de marge de manœuvre de gain sur ce point.

Kitchenette : vie quotidienne des employés et accueil des visiteurs

La kitchenette dont dispose chaque unité est réduite à sa plus simple expression : seuls un évier et un petit frigo table témoignent de la destination du lieu.

Aucun extra ne vient l’agrémenter : aucune vaisselle, pas de produit vaisselle, pas de four pour réchauffer ses aliments, pas de couverts, pas de plaques de cuisson. Les gens se cotisent pour acheter four à micro-ondes, bouilloire électrique, vaisselle et fournissent les produits et ustensiles d’entretien eux-mêmes, et font bien sûr la vaisselle à la main. La Commission n’offre aucune boisson, même pas l’eau (une seule fontaine à la cantine), ni le café ni le thé. Tout est donc acheté par les employés eux-mêmes, à l’extérieur ou à la cantine. Une simple tasse de thé y revient 95 cents, l’addition peut s’avérer assez lourde en fin de mois.

Cette situation est la plus difficile à vivre lors de la visite de personnes de l’extérieur. On ne propose en général ni verre d’eau, ni tasse de café ou de thé, la plupart du temps de crainte que la vaisselle utilisée ne soit pas irréprochable, et puis dans les réserves de qui aller s’approvisionner ? Ce manque d’hospitalité crée comme une gêne, à laquelle nous nous sommes habitués, mais quel est son impact sur les visiteurs ?

Entretien des locaux

Les personnes préposées à l’entretien sont tenus par des cadences très élevées : j’ai calculé que la surface à entretenir était quatre fois supérieure pour un même nombre d’heures que ce que j’ai connu en d’autres lieux.. A ce rythme, le travail ne peut être mené que de manière superficielle. Le coup d’aspirateur quant à lui porte bien son nom : il est vif et rare, quelques coups au milieu de la pièce et hop le travail est terminé.

Les contrats en ce domaine sont sans nul doute à des prix sans concurrence, mais avec un impact sur les conditions de travail : atmosphère empoussiérée, tapis plains tachés. Si l’on combine atmosphère empoussiérée et chaufferette à air pulsé, on obtient un cocktail détonnant pour les bronches.

Réunions

Dans certains bâtiments, il n’y a aucune salle de réunion pour les réunions d'équipes, pas d’endroit en-dehors de la cantine où se réunir à quelques-uns. Des unités de 30 personnes font leurs réunions hebdomadaires dans le bureau de leur chef, avec des gens qui se retrouvent assis dans le couloir par manque de place ! Il faut de toute manière prendre ses notes et tenir ses dossiers sur ses genoux !

Alors que la tendance dans les aménagements de bureaux est de créer des espaces de rencontre entre les gens, ici rien de pareil. La matière traitée n’est pas d’ordre créatif, me direz-vous ? Mais la possibilité de se rencontrer à trois ou quatre pour discuter d’un problème relève d’un simple management de bon sens. Ne pouvoir le faire qu’à la cantine ou quand le chef est absent et qu’on peut utiliser son bureau et sa table de réunion induit un manque de fluidité dans les rapports au sein d’une équipe.

Ergonomie

Nous avons de très bonnes tables de travail, datant parfois de très nombreuses années,  réglables en hauteur, avec un bloc tiroir de qualité, dont les tiroirs ne coincent jamais. Il y a eu de bons investissements par le passé.

La qualité des sièges par contre laisse à désirer. Ils offrent les possibilités minimales requises à l’heure actuelle (réglage de la hauteur d’assise, réglage du dossier, possibilité de régler l’ensemble en fixe ou en oscillant), mais n’offrent pas le confort d’assise requis par des personnes appelées à passer le plus clair de leur temps devant un ordinateur. Aucune possibilité de régler la hauteur des accoudoirs, pas de possibilité de régler le soutien des lombaires. Ces défauts font que l’on ne peut trouver une position optimale et que la plupart du temps nous n’utilisons pas notre dossier.

Les douleurs diverses sont nombreuses. Cervicales, tendinites dans les bras, maux de dos sont nombreux.

Conclusion

Plus que chacun des points pris individuellement, c’est la combinaison de tous ces paramètres pris dans leur dimension minimale qui créent un environnement de travail spartiate, austère, sans confort.

Les personnes qui fustigent le niveau des salaires européens n’accepteraient sans doute pas de travailler dans ces conditions. Mais les normes d’entretien des locaux ne sont pas tout à fait les mêmes partout. L'image de marque de la Commission ne s'entretient qu’en haut lieu.

Pour le tout-venant, l’employé est traité sans ménagement et le visiteur reçu sans égards.

La réforme 2004 a introduit des nouveau grades administrateur AD5 et AD6 en dessous anciens grades d'entée A8 (=AD7) et A7 (=AD8). Il semble qu'à l'époque, l'administration pensait qu'elle pouvait bien trouver suffisamment de candidats qualifiée à ces niveaux de salaire inférieures. La publication de concours au grades AD7, n'est-elle pas une admission de la part de la Commission que les salaires d'embauche AD5 et AD6 sont trop bas pour trouver un nombre suffisant de candidats qualifiés?

Alors quelle est la logique de la Commission de proposer au Conseil de réduire encore d'avantage l'attractivité des salaires AD5 et AD6, quand en même temps en recrute de plus en plus au grade AD7? Si nous continuons sur cette voie, la Commission devra-t-elle bientôt publier des concours AD8?

Le problème de cette augmentation progressive des grades d'entrée est qu'elle crée des nouvelles discriminations pour les premier victimes de la réforme: Les nouveau collègues recrutés en AD5 dans les années 2005-2006-2007... (qui avait en moyennes plus de 40 ans d'âge et de longues années d'expérience professionnelle) et qui ont travaillé dur pour se voir promus au grade AD6 ou AD7 se verront mis en face avec des nouveaux collègues de quelques 30 ans d'âge qui seront classé au même grade? Cela rendra encore plus absurde le système de carrière à la Commission. A l'origine, un système de grades devrait refléter les différences de compétences/ performances/ expériences entre collègues. La réforme de 2004 avait déjà réduit ce système à l'absurde, en attribuant jusqu'a quatre grades de différence à des recrues de qualification identique. Avec l'introduction de concours à grades de plus en plus élevé, nous rendons notre système de grades encore plus absurde.

Quelle conséquence?

Si les salaires d'embauche à l'extrémité inférieure de la grilles des salaires (AD5 et AD6) ne sont pas suffisamment intéressants, pourquoi ne pas les rendre plus attractifs?

Les représentants du personnel devraient s'opposer à l'inflation des grades d'embauche, et plutôt insister que les salaires des grades de début de carrière soient ajustés vers le haut pour ainsi assurer l'attractivité de la fonction publique européenne.

Moins de fonctionnaires, mieux payés...

Il faudrait montrer cet article aux représentants français. Pourquoi ce qui est bon pour les fonctionnaires français ne le serait pas pour nous ?

Je suis intérimaire depuis 4 ans à la commission. Et comme tous les autres intérimaires nous ne sommes pas d'accord avec les nouveaux salaires que nous recevons depuis janvier. Ils ont diminué sans aucune raison.

Nous sommes soi-disant alignés sur ceux des fonctionnaires qui, à ce qui paraît, devaient être diminué. Or, il n'en est rien. Alors pourquoi, nous, intérimaires devons être les seuls à être victime d'un système (parce qu'un contrat a été signé en 2011) alors que les fonctionnaires vont voir leur salaire à la hausse ?

The internal law defying Commission

Commission does well to take care of all cases concerning abiding by European Union laws, she is strict with big corporations, follows closely heavily or thoughtlessly indebted member states and even take sometimes the wolfs of the heartless Council to the Court.

Often she makes us think she means what she says and that she says what she means.
This sort of responsible behaviour is reassuring and sets an example to imitate.

Unfortunately this is not the case with staff promotions.
When it comes to that, the Commission seems to have stopped saying what she does and doing what she says.

It's revealing that nobody knows, yet again, how many promotions per grade the Commission asks the budgetary authorities to finance for 2012.
Should it not be public domain data for all involved parties, interested staff members included at this time of the year since the budget is said to be ready?

Isn't an elementary rule of good public administration to let all us know how many posts have been asked for and on which rational as well as how many have been finally granted, with all relevant information in case of surprising refusals?

It's preoccupying that 5 year promotion rate averages provided by the Staff Regulations [art 6, annex IB] have never been made public and that partial semi official documents show that for many AST and AD grades they seem to lag far behind the statutory ones.
Isn't time for the Commission to comply with Staff Regulations even after a dreadful delay and stop victimizing a great many of the very low pay entry grades by applying finally the statutory rates of promotion?

It's surprising that even the transitory arrangements provided by Staff Regulations for a period ending on 1/1/2012 [see art 107bis in conjunction with Annex XIII, art 9 and 10] seem to have been completely misapplied at the serious expense of the relevant staff.
Would it not be normal practice under "rule of law" conditions for the Commission to be respectful of both the spirit and the letter of Staff Regulations and stop depriving the end of career grades even of the already very limited promotion percentages provided for them?

Whose interest is served when careers are amputated unjustifiably both at their initial and their final stages?

Under these circumstances nobody dares to imagine that the Commission should also verify the lawfulness of rapid careers that during the last 3 years seem to have been paid by lamentable staff appraisal reports.[Control of the so called guarantees Kallas]

It should be reminded yet again that this sort of chronic statutory disrespect of promotion quotas always and exclusively hindering normal career and salary advancement for meritorious and hard working staff is a rather nasty complement to the particularly late starting age of new staff, the considerable length of average careers proposed [more than 41 years for the average career and 44 years for a normal career if all promotions and salary steps were to be obtained – see annex IB of Staff Regulations] as well as to the systematic use of the lowest possible grades as the entry level for taking on newcomers.

If to all this it is added the erratic behaviour that led the Commission to impose precarious jobs [contract agent status] to ten times more staff than provided by Staff Regulations instead of offering them decent employment as permanent civil servants, the situation is more than dangerous in the medium term.

This light headed Commission seems to give in to every sort of conventional wisdom, to apply "too little and too late" strategies and be in favour of "kiss up, kick down" neo feudal management methods doomed to discourage conscientious staff and fail European citizens and hopes.

Favourite Commission culprits have often obvious motivations for their misdeeds.
Big corporations with monopolistic instincts yield sometimes to greed.
Indebted Member States seem to have been systematically tempted by short term prosperity at the expense of their lenders and their future generations.
The Council is said to be both prone to window dressing, so as to avoid recognizing their own responsibility for the actual financial mess, and enthusiastic at the idea of a toothless intergovernmental Europe insufficiently served by disheartened, lower quality, badly paid and more…obedient European civil servants.

All these are sinful motives but at least understandable taken account the wrongdoers' interests.
What is the motive of the Commission, though, for having been blind and deaf always since 2004 as far human resources competent management and promotion are concerned?
What has made the Commission allergic to merit, years of devoted service and hard work?
What makes the Commission avoid clarity, transparency and accountability in this domain?
What has made the Commission insensible to common sense?

Even the vilest of interest would be a relief for both European citizens and civil servants to discover.
Even the lowest perception of petty gain would be a reassuring explanation.
Even the silliest of the conspiracy theories would be some sort of enemy worthy of being fought.
Any proof that there is a reasonable explanation for the Commission's attitude would be a consolation.

Unfortunately the impression for now remains that the Commission seems stubbornly committed to apply dual standards for herself.

Is there no remedy?
Has reason been lost for ever in the Institution's premises?

Only the future will tell.
But in the meantime the whole European experience is running out of time and steam.

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