COMMISSION TABLES NEW PACKAGE OF STAFF REFORMS.

The Commission adopted on December 20 a series of proposals to modify the staff regulations of the European civil service. Initiated by Vice-President, Neil Kinnock, the proposals are based on the February and October communications concerning negotiations with unions and professional organisations and referring to the Council and the Parliament (see European Report 2572, 2573, 2606, 2616, 2630 and 2631, same section). These proposals will now be submitted to the Inter-institutional Staff Regulations Committee, which has to give its opinions in March, before it goes to a formal Council majority vote according to Article 283 of the EU Treaty.The new career structure, one of the main proposals of the overhaul, and basic salary excluding benefitsThe evolution of the professional categories are as follows:- manual workers, secretaries and archivists (formerly D and C) can move from grades one to five;- assistants (formerly B) can move from grades three or four to ten;- middle and senior grades can move from grade six to 16;Moving from one grade to another will be done on the basis of merit while moving from one step to another will be on the basis of semi-automatic promotion.The adoption of the proposal on the final early retirement scheme was changed in order to take into account new elements which arose during negotiations with the unions but which also stemmed from the President of the Court of Auditors (CoA), Jan O...