WRITTEN QUESTION P-1734/00 by Antonio Di Pietro (ELDR) to the Commission. The Ispra Joint Research Centre's new research staff policy.
Date: 2000-05-20
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Joint Research Centre, personnel administration

C 46 E/212

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

13.2.2001

(b) Between 1995 and 1999,

in-service training grants totalling € 39 million have helped
34 600 teachers of a foreign language to improve their skills. This is in addition to the 19 000
teachers who benefited between 1990 and 1994.

individual

(c) Between 1995 and 1999 over 2 800 future foreign language teachers received a bursary enabling
them to spend up to eight months teaching their mother tongue in a school abroad, as part of the
Lingua assistantship scheme.

(d) Support has been given to the development of innovative language teaching methods and learning

tools, and the development of instruments for the assessment of language skills.

(e) Each year, grants have enabled about 30 000 young people to improve their foreign language skills by
working with counterparts in a school abroad on a project related to their education and training;
they have then travelled abroad to work with them face-to-face, and spend time in their families,
thereby making practical use of their new foreign language skills.

The Commission is pleased to confirm that the actions referred to under (a) (b), (c), and (e) above will
continue in the second phase of the Socrates programme, within the Comenius action, whose objectives
now include the promotion of language teaching and learning. The actions referred to under (d) above will
continue under the new Lingua action, which will also contain new measures to raise public awareness
about the importance of language learning, improve citizens(cid:146) access to language learning opportunities,
and share information on best practice and innovation in the field.

The promotion of language teaching and learning in the field of vocational training continues to be a
priority in the Leonardo Da Vinci programme.

The Socrates decision lists as target languages the 11 (cid:145)official(cid:146) languages of the Community, plus Irish and
Letzebuergisch. The national languages of the European economic area (EEA) countries (cid:129) Norwegian and
Icelandic (cid:129) and the national languages of the newly participating countries are also eligible. Regional and
minority languages are not eligible to be target languages under the Socrates programme.

The Leonardo Da Vinci programme does not identify target languages.

(2001/C 46 E/256)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-1734/00

by Antonio Di Pietro (ELDR) to the Commission

(20 May 2000)

Subject: The Ispra Joint Research Centre(cid:146)s new research staff policy

The new research staff policy, which is also applied at the Ispra JRC, has made it possible to introduce
more flexible arrangements for the employment of specialist staff
(in those sectors in which the
Commission does not have reserve lists) by offering fixed-term contracts to enable temporary staff to
occupy permanent posts for a maximum of three years.

As this system applies to 25 % of the entire establishment plan, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the
termination of the contracts in question inevitably slows down the progress of ongoing research projects,
while the replacement of the staff concerned incurs considerable administrative costs (e.g. in terms of the
preparation of notices of competition, the carrying out of recruitment procedures, the training of new
temporary staff, and the unemployment benefits payable for two years to staff who are unemployed).

This being so, has the Commission carried out a cost/benefit analysis of the new staff policy? Has it
compared the costs involved in replacing the staff concerned with the cost of extending their contracts for
an indefinite period? If so, what were its findings?

13.2.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 46 E/213

If the Commission introduced this policy to ensure that its staff management was more rational and more
closely tailored to the tasks to be accomplished, why are the fixed-term contracts in question not designed
to coincide with the duration of the specific projects involved?

Does the Commission not agree that the new research staff policy limits the application of the principle
that the Commission should make the best and most effective use of the scarce personnel resources at its
disposal, which lies at the heart of the administrative reforms sought by Mr Prodi?

Answer given by Mr Busquin on behalf of the Commission

(27 June 2000)

The contracts referred to by the Honourable Member cover temporary staff for a maximum fixed term of
three years, as provided for by the new staff policy arising from the research budget (NPPR) adopted by the
Commission in 1996. Their purpose was to enable a certain amount of flexibility to be achieved in
managing specialist human resources, more particularly in the areas in which the Commission does not
have any recruitment pool. Their number may not exceed 25 % of the research payroll.

It should be stressed that these contracts are not intended to extend throughout a framework programme
nor even a particular project. They constitute an additional form of recruitment to that applying to other
research-budget temporary staff which, as stressed by the Honourable Member, meets a management
requirement that is more targeted on part of the research staff.

Since these contracts are for a fixed term and restricted to three years the applicant selection procedure is
carried out by the departments on the basis of permanent applicant database fed via a call for applications
accompanied by extensive publicity in the European, and specialist, press.

The other temporary staff, representing the stable core of the NPPR, receive an initial five-year contract,
which can be renewed once for the same duration and, subsequently, for an indeterminate period. These
list drawn up in the wake of a selection process
staff members are selected from the recruitment
containing tests comparable to those used in the Commission(cid:146)s general competitions.

On the basis of the above and in view of the obligations under the staff rules which the Commission must
meet in order to organise competitions, it would seem that there is no basis for carrying out a cost/benefit
analysis.

Finally, the three-year fixed-term staff are informed from the outset that the duration of their contract is
strictly limited. If they wish to make a career within the Commission they of course have the option of
taking competitions or submitting to selection procedures under the same conditions as the other
applicants.

The Commission feels that the NPPR, and in particular the three-year contracts enabling staff to be
recruited very quickly in highly specialised areas where there are no waiting lists for recruitment is
perfectly in line with the implementation of the principles of efficiency and optimum use of resources
which is one of the cornerstones of the reform policy.

(2001/C 46 E/257)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1788/00

by Salvador Garriga Polledo (PPE-DE) to the Commission

Subject: Asturian Rural Accommodation Network

(8 June 2000)

At a meeting recently held by the Spanish Rural Tourism Association, attention was once again drawn to
the importance which has been acquired, in the Community tourism sector, by the activities of those who
promote this type of tourism in rural areas of the Community.