Final strait before approval of proposal on letting 600 Commission officials go

Brussels, 12/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is likely to adopt a Communication on 22 November from Commissioner Neil Kinnock, giving him a mandate to present an amended proposal to the Council on letting 600 officials go. The amended proposal will include the elements of a Commission compromise ("Non Paper") presented to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) on Friday that removes most delegations' reservations about eligibility criteria and average compensation levels. COREPER discussed the Commission's initial proposal (published in January 2001) three times without managing to strike an agreement. The essential elements of the compromise document are as follows:

• Compensation levels. The average level of compensation should be cut from 65% of final salary to 62.5%;
• Eligibility criteria. These will be revised upwards from 50 years of age and 10 years of service (in the initial proposal) to 55 years and 15 years of service, which would reduce the numbers eligible from 5,608 to 2,345;
• When the regulation would apply. In order to cater for delays in adopting the regulation, the application period (initially set as until 2002) will be extended until 2004;
• Extra pension rights. The time period for acquiring extra pension rights (previously set at 6 years) might be cut to five years in order to cater for the increases in average age and length of service for the eligible officials.

At the COREPER discussions, Member States felt that it was important not to set up a system that was more beneficial than the one already outlined in the Staff Regulations. In line with the amendments tabled by Parliament in June 2001, the Commission accepted that the scheme (initially covering 600 Commission officials) be extended to officials of the other institutions, and also to the EP's political groups' temporary agents. The Council may agree to consider each institution's demands separately - it has asked each of the institutions involved to provide a breakdown of estimated costs and implementation reports justifying that budget neutrality would be respected. The Commission accepted the EP's proposals concerning tightened control of accumulated revenue and pledged that it would not select applicants whose departure would not be in the interest of their departments. This would mean that there would be fewer than 600 applicants and therefore the Commission would not make full use of its "quota".