Brussels, 15/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - With the exception of some European Parliament and Council representatives and a minority of trade union representatives, most members of the body negotiating the new reform package (the Ersboell Group) came out on Thursday and Friday in favour of implementing a genuine reform of human resource policy, the cornerstone of which might be a modernised and completely new type of career structure. The high level negotiating body has finished its work and has called on the European Commission to present proposals by 30 October concerning a single, unitary new career structure with two groups of jobs (one category for administrators and the other for assistants), rather than four as at present (see EUROPE of 12 October, p.14).
To reassure those who are the most opposed to change, the Ersboell Group agreed to invite the Commission to add a fifth scale to the four planned in this new 16-grade grid, signalled an EU official, adding that it had also been agreed to ensure "permeability between the two categories". Consensus also emerged in terms of paying particular attention to the training of officials, while at the same time making large-scale budget cuts once the system is fully up and running (around 2015). Scrapping the automatic right to transfer to one's country of origin the 16% expatriation allowance (by applying a correction coefficient which varies from country to country) should make considerable savings. This rule will from now on be limited to expenditure arising from legal obligations (children's education costs).
On Wednesday, the president of the high level body, Niels Ersboell, will finalise his conclusions on the projects covered during the negotiations, adding not only tables outlining the common positions reached on most of the subjects of reform, but also individual dossiers detailing the different points where there is still opposition. The next day, there will be a political consultation meeting between Commissioner Neil Kinnock and staff trade unions and representatives of the administration to discuss the outcome of the negotiations. The Commission will adopt its decisions and guidelines on 30 October (according to the roadmap outlined in EUROPE, op cit) after a meeting in Strasbourg on 23 October between the various negotiators and the group of Commissioners with responsibility for reform.