Staff at the Council of Ministers will be on strike today and tomorrow (16-17 May) to protest against an attempt by the member states to curb the pay, pensions and promotions of European Union officials. Staff unions at the European Parliament and the Commission have lodged pre-notifications of possible strikes but have not yet set dates. 

Council staff held a first day of strikes last Wednesday (7 May), on the eve of an agreement by the member states to seek far deeper cuts to officials’ salaries and perks than those set out by the European Commission in the initial reform proposal it made in 2011. The agreement was reached even though the Council’s own legal service warned member states’ ambassadors that the decision would not stand up to legal scrutiny.

An official from the legal service briefed the ambassadors that their bid violates three principles contained in the EU’s treaties – the principles of acquired rights, of proportionality and of reasonable expectations.

Negotiations

A first round of three-way negotiations on the reform took place on Monday (13 May). Maroš Šefc?ovic?, the European commissioner for inter-institutional relations and administration, and Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, a centre-left German MEP who is the European Parliament’s negotiator, told Rory Montgomery, Ireland’s ambassador to the EU, representing the member states, that they rejected the Council’s position and that they would negotiate on the basis of the Commission’s proposal. “Both the European Parliament and the Commission made clear that the Council mandate was totally unacceptable and not a basis for successful negotiations,” said Šefc?ovic?’s spokesman.

Talks between the three sides will continue at a technical level tomorrow, but it is unclear whether a second round of political negotiations, scheduled for 28 May, will take place if the member states refuse to make concessions. MEPs have made it clear that a reform of the staff regulations is a precondition for the completion of negotiations on the EU’s long-term budget.

Simon Coates, secretary-general of the Council branch of the Fédération de la Fonction Public Européenne, a trade union, said that the cuts sought by the member states were disproportionate and looked like “collective punishment” rather than a reform.