WRITTEN QUESTION E-3410/01

by Hans-Peter Martin (PSE) to the Commission

(21 December 2001)

Subject: EU civil service reform

According to the German magazine Der Spiegel of 29 October 2001, the Commission President Romano Prodi has in essence contributed nothing to civil service reform.

Is this correct? Does the Commission President have any observations to make on the many assertions made in the detailed article, in particular those on the subject of purchasing power parity for retired EU civil servants?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(24 January 2002)

The 29 October article in Der Spiegel to which the Honourable Member refers is to say the least an exercise in selective reporting. The Commission is grateful for the opportunity provided by the Honourable Member's question to rebut the claims of the article in full.

The article neglects the very real progress made by the Commission under the leadership of President Romano Prodi, and focuses instead on a number of outdated aspects of the personnel policy of the Institution which the Commission is addressing as part of the fundamental overhaul of policy and practice in this area. The design of the changes was, as the Honourable Member will know, set out as long ago as March 1st 2000 when the Reform Strategy White Paper was adopted. Since then, as the Honourable Member will also know, Parliament has made intensive examinations of the Reform proposals and responded very positively to the principles and detail of Commission policy. This thorough and objective Parliamentary activity contrasts strongly with the approach manifested in a Der Spiegel article which included a mixture of rumour, gossip and innuendo about the Commission President and did not constitute serious reporting or intelligent analysis.

The facts are clear and speak for themselves: The Commission is well on course towards fulfilling the mandate for fundamental administrative Reform given to it by the Heads of State and Government and specified by Parliament. Secondly, under the active leadership of Romano Prodi, the entire College of Commissioners has been directly involved in, and explicitly committed to, the modernisation process at every stage.

The President's decision to make a specific appointment of a Vice-President with explicit responsibility for Administrative Reform, and the establishment of a formal Reform Group of Commissioners to guarantee thorough engagement of the College in the Reform strategy, were examples of the way in which unprecedented recognition has been given, from the outset, to the central importance of Reform. To interpret such deliberate actions as an abdication of responsibility by the President, as the Spiegel article implies, is bizarre by any standards. All Commissioners together approved the Reform White Paper on 1 March 2000(1), and signed it in order to emphasis their personal commitment to its full implementation. Since then, the President together with his senior advisers has been fully involved in discussions, both at political and at working level. He has met with staff and has taken the unprecedented step of inviting staff representatives to meet the College on several occasions. In short, President Prodi has contributed significantly to civil service reform and that continues.

In focussing exclusively on personnel policy, Der Spiegel also failed to mention the considerable progress that has been made in the other two themes of the Reform strategy: improved financial management, and radically improving the planning and programming of Commission activities. On the former, the Commission's financial procedures and systems have been completely overhauled, a comprehensive proposal for revision of the Financial Regulations was submitted to Council and Parliament on 17 October 2000, and a new Internal Audit Directorate General has been established, together with the creation of specialist audit capabilities in the services of the Commission. These and other relevant developments are recognised by external expert observers to surpass the recommendations of the 1999 Comité des Sages, and they are also recognised to be the sort of arrangements which provide for high standards of modern financial management and control. Meanwhile, the Commission has also established within the services reporting directly to the President a Strategic Planning and Programming function which will ensure that the resources and the political priorities of the Commission are better matched, and that the personnel and other means of the Commission are deployed with the highest achievable effectiveness. Taken together, these changes provide practical evidence of the very significant improvements being made in the way that the Commission manages its activities. To neglect that, or to give the impression that it is not evidence of real achievement by the Commission and its staff which is being accomplished in a very short time and at small cost, would be a gross misrepresentation of reality.

The article to which the Honourable Member refers appeared on 29 October 2001. On 30 October 2001, following six months of consultation with staff and negotiation with staff representatives the Commission adopted a package of proposals for a major overhaul of its human resources policy.

The impression given by the article is that the fact that some of the trade unions representing staff have taken a positive view of the personnel policy reform package means that the Commission has somehow sacrificed its commitment to meaningful Reform. That view is wrong in substance and perverse in attitude. The Commission welcomes the fact that two staff unions which, between them, secured a very clear majority of votes in the most recent Staff Committee elections have taken a positive and constructive attitude to the reforms. It regrets that four other unions which, between them, attracted a minority of staff support in elections have not so far been able to take the same stance. It would obviously be eccentric for anyone to claim, however, that an agreement concluded with some unions after several months of negotiation signified abandonment of the Reform mission. The truth is that the Commission has continued to uphold the Reform objectives which it publicly specified in principle and in detail, it has undertaken genuine and thorough consultation and negotiation in the way that it promised, and in the course of negotiations it has accepted certain constructive and practical ideas put forward by staff representatives, usually in a modified form. The negotiations added to understanding and commitment among staff representatives, produced no more than marginal changes in cost, and did not dilute the purposes or the provisions for Reform. That is why the Commission has been able to adopt the full personnel policy Reform package. A conclusion to negotiations which did not fully sustain Reform would not have been proposed by myself as responsible Commissioner, neither would it have been adopted by the College.

The Der Spiegel article refers to a number of features of the Commission's personnel policy, without mentioning the fact that the package of proposals (foreshadowed in a series of consultation documents adopted on 28 February 2001) puts forward changes to precisely these items which it regards to be anomalous or anachronistic.

For example:

- First, where children attend educational establishments free of charge, the Commission proposes the abolition of the education allowance. Officials whose children attend one of the European schools or other public sector schools would consequently not receive this allowance.

- Second, the Commission has proposed the severe curtailment of officials' ability to transfer part of their salary to their country of origin with the application of a weighting factor. This would, in future, be limited to specified and essential expenditure such as a parent's proven payment of child maintenance. In addition, the weighting factor relating to retired officials will no longer be based on the cost of living in capitals, but on the average for each Member State as a whole a change which is both fair and cost effective.

- Third, the Der Spiegel article derides the Commission proposal that formal recognition should be given in the Staff Regulations to same-sex marriages that are contracted under the law of those Member States which make such statutory provision. The implied prejudice of the author of the article is evident. However, Community policy endorsed by Parliament is to contest discrimination of all types, and the Commission's proposal is certainly consistent with that. The Commission can therefore see no justification for discriminating against staff who have legally contracted a same-sex marriage under the law of one of the Member States.

It is also significant that the article gives no real attention to the very major changes in individual appraisal, promotion, mobility and career structure that are being pursued as essential points of Reform. Any magazine feature which purports to deal with civil service reform but does not focus on such core issues has all of the authority and usefulness of a newspaper report of a football match that fails to mention which teams were playing.

(1) COM(2000) 200 final.