EUROPEAN CIVIL SERVICE: REPORT ON THE SYSTEM OF REMUNERATION OF OFFICIALS.

On December 8, the European Commission adopted a report on the remuneration of officials. This system, instituted in 1991, is known by the term "the method" and expires in July 2001. The method aimed to ensure a parallelism between the evolution of the remuneration of the officials of the European institutions and the evolution of salaries paid to the Member States' own national civil servants. This parallelism translated into a drop in purchasing power of 6.1% in eight years for European officials. The fact remains that the net increase in the basic salary of EU civil servants has been 11.6% since 1991, without taking into account the numerous advantages otherwise granted and indexed to this basic salary, nor the 2.7% increase proposed for 2000, with anticipatory effect as of July 1, 1999 (see European Report No 2451). As it turns out, the lowest basic monthly salary (Grade 4, Step 1) is - even before the planned increase - Euro 1,889.52, placing it in the medium-to-high range of the basic salaries of national officials. The report on the system of remuneration is to serve as a basis for the reform of the method demanded by the Member States and for which the Commission is expected to submit proposals by mid-2000.

The legal basis of all aspects of EU staff remuneration are the Staff Regulations for Officials of the European Communities. The system of adjustment to remuneration is based on the following two principles:

- parallelism of the evolution of the remuneration of the officials of the European institutions with that of the officials of the Member States of the European Union; - equality between the purchasing power of the remuneration in each place of employment and the purchasing power of the remuneration in Brussels. The "method" adopted by the Council in November 1991, replacing the one adopted in 1981, was proposed by the Commission in October 1990. The subject was dealt with by the Committee of Member States' Permanent Representatives (COREPER) and the Council (15 meetings of COREPER, 3 General Affairs Councils, 1 European Council) and was the subject of many meetings between the Presidency, the Commission and the staff representatives. The negotiation gave rise to an eight-day general strike and to other union action. The compromise that emerged from the negotiations was submitted to the staff, which approved it by referendum in October 1991. This arduously negotiated compromise constitutes an overall solution which instituted...