Brussels, 21/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - By a qualified majority, the EU Council of Ministers decided on Tuesday 20 December not to endorse a European Commission proposal for a 1.7% pay rise for EU civil servants for 2011. Four countries abstained, including Luxembourg and Belgium. The Council decided to refer the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over its decision not to make use of Article 10, Annex XI, of the Staff Regulations which allows the Commission to say that due to exceptional circumstances, it recommends that the Council of Ministers should not use the normal pay rise calculations. The question of referring the matter to the European Court of Justice was also decided in a qualified majority vote, with six countries abstaining (Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Greece, Italy and Portugal). The Commission may lodge an appeal itself at the Court in this connection.
Under the usual method, European civil servants' pay adjustments are calculated on the basis of civil servants' pay in eight member states accounting for more than 75% of EU GDP, namely Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, along with the cost of living in Brussels. This year, this calculation arrived at a 1.8% fall in purchasing power and a 3.6% rise in the Belgian cost of living, leading to a pay rise of 1.7 %, which has been vetoed by the Council of Ministers. The ministers asked the Commission to make use of Article 10 of Annex XI because of the “existence of a serious and sudden deterioration in the economic and social situation.”
The Commission says that the conditions are not appropriate for making use of Article 10, although it shares the ministers' concern to make cost savings in these troubled times. The Commission says, however, that from the legal standpoint, it is not allowed to make use of Article 10 and has based its calculations on the Commission's Autumn Economic Forecasts (published on 10 November 2011). It says that the 1.8% fall in purchasing power is an accurate reflection of the changes in circumstances of national civil servants.
The Council of Ministers says that the only legal means available to it is to take the Commission to court for refusing to apply Article 10. The ministers say that refusal to apply the exception clause “is based on manifestly insufficient and erroneous grounds.” The member states say that the wording of Article 10 and the duty of EU institutions to properly cooperate with one another (as specified in the EU Treaties) mean that the Commission must unveil a more appropriate proposal complying with the Council of Ministers' wishes.
Last year, the Council of Ministers decided on a lower pay rise than recommended by the Commission. The latter took the Council to the European Court of Justice, which ruled that the Council did not have the legal power to decide on the pay rise itself, but it could ask the Commission to apply the exceptional circumstances clause (Article 10), which is what the Council is doing this year.
The Commission often asks EU member states to change their pension systems but the EU civil servants' own pension system is in deficit and has to be topped up by a cash injection from the member states each year. The EU pension scheme's deficit will double over the next five to ten years. A source points out that if nothing is done about this, member states will have to double their contributions to EU civil servants' pensions and that the Commission would also have to chip in. (LC/transl.fl)