2000 Jobs were to go by the end of 2006
In 2006 on several occasions Reza Fardoom, managed to meet and talk with five assistants of MEPs in Brussels to express our total disgust of announced job-cuts.
They all assured him that EP Budgetary members at their last meeting were completely opposed to the Finnish presidency's 2000 job-cuts proposal by 2010 where 1700 are destined for the EC Commission alone.
This represented 8.5% cut in staffing of the institutions and is equivalent to
getting rid of staff in three DGs of Commission.
Further, only 41 new jobs were to be created for the new member states based on the Council proposal where 801 jobs had been promised previously.
Czech newspapers had managed to get hold of this news and had plastered their font pages with this un-kept promise.
It were not to be very long when others were to inform their public too. Only three
countries were opposed to this insane proposal.
And these were:
Italy, Spain and Poland. As a result of this new crisis for the officials, our president met with the following MEP assistants in
separate meeting on 20 july 2006:
Mr Jaroslav Strake assistant to Mr Libor Roucek
(MEP), Ms Niamh Kelly assistant to Ms Mairead McGuiness? (MEP), Mr Antoine Varoque assistant to Mme Catherine Guy Quint (MEP), Ms Q. Reville assistant to Ms Neena Gill (MEP) and finally Mr Sven Röhr assistant to Mr Walter (MEP).
All of these MEPs are in the EP Budgetary Committee. During the discussions the following facts were revealed:
1. It was the Finnish presidency who came up with the idea of 2000 job-cuts to boost productivity in the EU institutions and force better efficiency.
2. Mr Barroso was against this proposal.
3. We are assured that at least the following MEPs in the Budgetary Committee were against this proposal: Mr Elles, Mrs Guy Quint, Mr Roucek and Mr
Walter.
There is a perception in the EP that the Kinnock Reform has been a good thing.
There is a perception in the EP amongst most M EP assistants that in era before the reform the promotions were automatic but now the Officials have to show their real merit before they are considered for promotion.
There is a perception amongst some MEP assistants that there are a number of officials in the Commission that have nothing to do all day.
And that their bosses are incapable of assigning them any proper job.
Our representative denied and refuted the above misconceptions about the officials and said these allegations are not at all representative of Commission staff.
He went further and warned that personnel mistrusts Mr Kallas's "simplification" drive in the light of Finnish presidency's planned jobcuts.
This may be an attempt to eventually render the Officials extinct and replace them with contractual agents and transfer the works of the Commission in more and more agencies.
At this point, Mr Röhr said that Ms Jutta Haug (MEP) is the rapporteur for the Agencies.
She verifies and makes sure that "the operational progress does not get reduced when creating Agencies and that the operational budgets do not go up while administrative budget lines reduce.
It was pointed out to her that she better re-reads the text of the charter for better understanding of its implications and application.
Our representative asked all assistants to convey to their respective MEPs our demands for safeguarding the future of EU Officials.
He also gave some examples of dis-functionality in systems such as CDR, application of minimum EU25 laws to officials of Commission, non-signature to ILO Conventions or non-application of EU Charter of Fundamental Rights where here one assistant questioned its relevance to EU officials.
