Opinion No 3/2001 on a proposal for a Council Regulation introducing special measures to terminate the service of officials of the Commission of the European Communities as part of the reform of the Commission
Date: 2001-04-05
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: European Commission, European official, equal treatment, regulations for civil servants, termination of employment

C 162/98

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

5.6.2001

OPINION No 3/2001

on a proposal for a Council Regulation introducing special measures to terminate the service of
officials of the Commission of the European Communities as part of the reform of the
Commission

(2001/C 162/02)

THE COURT OF AUDITORS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Commu-
nity, and in particular Article 283 thereof,

Having regard to the Commission proposal of 31 January 2001 (1),

Having regard to the request for an opinion on this proposal, sent
by the Council to the Court of Auditors and received at the Court
on 19 February 2001,

Whereas the purpose of the proposal is to authorise a termination-
of-service scheme for 600 Commission officials, with 300 leav-
ing in 2001 and 300 in 2002, in order to enable the Commission
to undertake a reallocation of human resources across its depart-
ments,

HAS ADOPTED THE FOLLOWING OPINION:

It is arguable that the calculation could have been more
4.
sophisticated. The analysis presented is static, in that it makes no
allowance for advancement up salary scales either for those offi-
cials taking early retirement or for the new officials recruited in
their place. Making allowance for this would on balance produce
further savings. Similarly the pensions of those taking early retire-
ment will be based on a lower average level of salary than would
have been the case had they continued in service until their nor-
mal age of retirement; this again should produce some longer-run
savings (it would be desirable to improve the wording of Article
4(7), to ensure that this has the effect that the Commission
intends). Again, the calculation takes no account of the longer-
run savings, beyond the transitional period, from the assumed
permanent reduction in staff numbers as 600 less productive offi-
cials are replaced, directly or indirectly by 258 new officials with
skills better adapted to current needs. Finally the Court notes that
no allowance is made for the real costs of the pension rights
earned by the newly recruited officials; as the Court noted in its
Annual Report on 1999 (paragraphs 6.7 and 6.8) the full cost of
funding such pension rights amounts to rather more than a third
of pensionable pay, while at present only employees’ contribu-
tions of 8,25 % are collected. This implies the long-run full cost
(but not the immediate cash cost) of the newly recruited officials
would be some 25 % higher than shown in the Commission’s cal-
culation. Overall, the net effect in the long run should be a sig-
nificant reduction in Commission staff costs, essentially reflect-
ing the lower numbers employed than would otherwise have been
the position.

In its explanatory memorandum the Commission stated that
1.
the termination-of-service scheme for 600 Commission officials
would make it possible for 258 new officials to be recruited, with
a neutral impact on the budget, as the savings generated by the
scheme would make it possible to balance the cost of the 258
new recruitments.

The other institutions

Calculation of budget neutrality

2. The annual savings and costs set out in Annex 2 of the pro-
posal summarise for both ‘leavers’ and ‘entrants’ the main salary
costs and revenue charged to the budget each year.

3. The way in which the immediate budgetary impact is pre-
sented is essentially reasonable.

(1) COM(2001) 50 final of 31 January 2001.

5.
In several institutions and bodies the age pyramid of the staff
and the difficulty that some of them have in adapting to the devel-
opment of new technologies create situations and needs similar
to those at the Commission. Only the Economic and Social Com-
mittee, whose age pyramid will naturally ensure a large-scale
renewal of staff during the coming years, and the Committee of
the Regions, which is in a growth phase, are not affected by this
problem. In its Judgment of 30 September 1998, Busacca and Oth-
ers v Court of Auditors (T — 164/97) the Court of First Instance of
the European Communities stated that a regulation which restricted
the right to have recourse to measures for the release of staff to
one institution alone imposed ‘a distinction between entirely simi-
lar situations which was arbitrary, or manifestly inappropriate in
relation to the objective pursued, and was as such contrary to the

5.6.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 162/99

principle of equal treatment, a fundamental principle of Commu-
nity law’. In its Judgments of 5 October 2000, C-432/98 P,
C-433/98 P and C-434/98 P, the Court of Justice did not ques-
tion the ground stated by the Court of First Instance and thus
upheld the definitive nature of the Judgment. Given that the Com-

mission’s proposal involves a derogation from the normal arrange-
ments whereby the Staff Regulation applies to all the institutions,
the Commission should have sought their views on whether they
face a comparable situation before putting forward this draft
Regulation.

This opinion was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg at the Court meeting of 5 April 2001.

For the Court of Auditors

Jan O. KARLSSON

President