At the European Parliament on Tuesday 27 March, the European Commissioner for Human Resources, Günther Oettinger, fought tooth and nail to defend the express appointment of the former head of Cabinet President Jean-Claude Juncker, Martin Selmayr, to the post of Secretary General of the European Commission.
Oettinger told the parliamentary committee on budgetary control several times that during the appointment procedure, the letter and spirit of the regulation governing the status of European officials were respected.
Selmayr has the “intellect, professional experience and administrative grade” (AD15) the position requires, the Commissioner stressed. Following repeated examinations, we are convinced that the law has been complied with, he stressed, hoping that the MEPs would agree by the end of the hearing.
Dismissing accusations from MEPs such as Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (ALDE, Netherlands), of a “politico-administrative coup d'État”, he noted that it was entirely possible that the next President of the European Commission would decide at the end of 2019 to appoint a new Secretary General.
Oettinger also said that he was prepared to make all documentation concerning the procedure available for the scrutiny of the MEPs, in a dedicated room.
However, the legal services of the European Parliament qualified Oettinger's statements as to the respect for the spirit and letter of the rules. “It's not that simple. There are regulations and court decisions”, said Valérie Montebello-Demogeot.
She went on to say that the European institutions have much discretion in decisions to transfer European officials to vacant positions, but they must act in the interests of the service in question. According to European case-law, when an institution decides to fill a post, it should in principle publish it in a job advertisement to bring it to the attention of the staff.
However, Montebello-Demogeot acknowledged that there are exceptions - she listed 75 of them - to this principle if the situation is “serious or urgent”. Three types of situation exist: - when a transfer of position is necessary due to conflicting relations of the harassment in the workplace type; - when a redeployment is necessary in the event of doubts as to the regularity of operations (Clotuche judgment T-339/03); - when the reorganisation of the service that is not functioning optimally is necessary (Guggenheim judgment T-373/04).
“It would have been better to have published the vacant position”, said Ingeborg Grässle.
The MEPs' questions concerned a wide range of subjects, such as the role played by Oettinger himself in the appointment, the precipitate nature of decisions that allowed Selmayr to be appointed deputy Secretary General then Secretary General on the same day, and exactly when Selmayr had got wind that the position was likely to fall vacant.
According to the Commission, Selmayr, who was personally involved in drafting the answers to the 134 questions of the CONT committee, did not find out about his predecessor's official resignation until the day before he was appointed, on 21 February. However, according to the Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir, Juncker allegedly told Selmayr before Christmas that he would have to go for it.
As Oettinger's answers did not shed light on all matters, the MEPs have decided to send the Commission further questions. The aim is to put together a draft resolution in the coming days for adoption at the next plenary session, on Thursday 19 April. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)