At the end of January, several trade unions - Alliance, Generation 2004, USF, RS-U4U/USHU - gave a strike warning to denounce the European Commission’s unwillingness to conduct a social dialogue on the reform of the network of 145 European Union delegations and on the redundancies, before Christmas 2025, of 29 local staff in the delegations established in the Western Balkans (see EUROPE 13655/17).
“It is imperative that this social dialogue takes place in order to establish a framework for all delegations, including support and mobility measures to avoid redundancies”, stress these organisations in a letter addressed to the European Commissioner for Budget and Public Administration, Piotr Serafin.
The unions criticise the fact that, “despite the EU narrative to protect the most vulnerable”, these redundancies affect “mainly women who are long-serving staff members, above the age of 55 and with little chance of finding decent employment”. These local agents have spent “the best part of their professional lives, serving the EU only to be discarded within a matter of weeks and with scant regard for their well-being and future livelihoods”, they add.
The staff organisations are also calling for the introduction, within six months, of social dialogue on the management of precarious contracts at the European Commission (local agents, contract agents, temporary agents) in order to improve job protection and career prospects.
Approved last June, the reform provides for a rationalisation of the network of EU delegations. Six of them, located in South Africa, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Fiji and Barbados, will act as regional hubs to reduce the presence of delegations in countries covered by a regional hub.
To see the strike warning: https://aeur.eu/f/kjw (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)