Brussels, 07/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The first meeting of the steering committee on staff policy reform, composed of representatives of trade unions and staff associations (OSP) and the Chef de Cabinet of Commissioner Kinnock, Philip Lowe, did not live up to the expectations of the OSP which, on Wednesday, submitted a strike warning for Monday 19 March (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.8). The trade unions consider that the requests addressed to the Commission end February have still not been taken into account. They called on the Commission to: - openly declare that the decisions of 28 February are "not binding and that everything is negotiable"; - agree to set in place "true negotiation conditions by establishing a joint high level group charged with defining common options on the most controversial broad lines of reform". Pursuant to the annex to the framework agreement of 1974, the signatories of the strike warning must use the period of conciliation with the Commission to advantage in order to "find a favourable outcome" to the conflict.
The trade union described this first meeting as a "non event". The Commission, it said, just "listened to our demands". The trade union organisation noted that this steering committee did not fulfil the mandate attributed to it during the Commission meeting, on 28 February, namely: "to give the best possible coverage to the main challenges of consultation on reform (…), examine the solutions possible for the most controversial broad lines". In a letter, Romano Prodi recently reaffirmed that the policy papers on the different aspects of personnel policy constitute "positions of departure for the Commission with a view to consultation with organisations (…) without prejudging the conclusions of these consultations, the results of which should be submitted to the College for approval" (see EUROPE of 1 March, p.6).