A BRUSSELS STATE SECRETARY INSULTS EU STAFF

THE COUNCIL MUST REACT!

Once again, the European civil servants have been unfairly attacked and insulted, this time coming from an important member of the Brussels regional government. In response to a number of questions and objections raised by the Commission’s trade unions regarding a plan to relocate several executive agencies to a building in the Brussels Northern District, the State Secretary for public works at the Brussels-Capital region, Pascal Smet, referred to European officials in absolutely unacceptable terms. Replying to the fully justified concerns of the unions regarding the security conditions of the Northern District, the secretary made these irresponsible and demagogic comments concerning the European staff:

“I think a lot of people working for the European Institutions take drugs”… without missing to specify that  “in Schuman they are dealing drugs too. And probably not the same drugs they are dealing there, but probably a little bit whiter”.

R&D Conseil joins the request made by Commission and Parliament staff representatives for EU authorities to urge Pascal Smet to immediately withdraw his words and to apologise to European staff.

Together with the Commission and the Parliament, the Council is the budgetary authority responsible for the institutions’s building policy,

and therefore we ask the Secretary-General of the Council and the President of the European Council to react to this attack

and to defend the reputation, the work and the honour of EU officials. The detailed explanation of this regrettable affaire, which concerns not only the image of the European public function but also the building policy of the institutions, can be found in the following note sent by the trade union Common Front of the Commission to Commissioner Hahn: Relocation of the executive Agencies to the North Light… – Renouveau & Démocratie (renouveau-democratie.eu)