Brussels, 27/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - In several Opinions (No. 5, 6 and 7 published on 17-18 September), the Court of Auditors severely criticises the plan to dispense with the services of 600 officials from the European Commission, 124 from the European Parliament (24 temporary agents attached to the political groups) and 94 from the Council of Ministers. These proposals, which were the subject of an agreement between the three institutions during the first reading of the Draft Budget for 2003 by the Council, were approved on Tuesday in Strasbourg by the European Parliament.
The Court of Auditors initially protested against the choice of officials the Commission selected, which does not respect the objectives of Member States in employment matters, as expressed during the Council of Barcelona on 15-16 March. The Council had recommended that the possibilities for keeping older workers (particularly those among them who were the most qualified) on the labour market through flexible and gradual retirement formulas rather than early retirement. Early retirement measures will involve 600 officials who are over 55 years old and who have worked in the service for at least fifteen years and who would get an allowance corresponding to 62.5% of their basic salary while awaiting pension payments. 312 of these officials are grade A/5, A/4 and A/3 from middle management levels. Their leaving would be staggered over three years in annual clusters of 200 up to 2004. The Commission has declared that it was ready to replace them with the creation of 273 posts with a neutral budgetary cost, which the Court is worried about, given the balance of the long-term accounts in the European Community pensions scheme.
The Court of Auditors accuses the service termination measures up to 2004, as being incoherent in seeking to terminate the services of 11 officials from Parliament and 24 temporary agents attached to the political groups and replacing them with 47 officials and 11 temporary agents. The Court is suspicious of the budgetary neutrality of the measure and has judged it contrary to the guidelines of the Heads of State and Government on employment policy. The Opinion of the Court is also very critical of the service termination plans at the Secretariat General of the Council of Ministers with the accompanying plan to take on 46 new officials.