Brussels,  11 March 2019

In response to your requests for assistance for individual cases, R&D provides its specialists and its legal assistance service free of charge, without any obligation to join.

Dear colleagues of EACEA,

Thank you for your encouragement and for your confidence!

We would especially like to thank the EACEA colleagues for their massive support and the huge amount of information, requests for help, suggestions and incentives that we will naturally analyse with the utmost attention.

We have taken note of the staff discomfort with the lack of consideration for their well-being, an “administrative culture” based on the exceptions that become the rule, the lack of clarity about the procedures in place, the irritation caused by any internal or external control …

In response to your requests for assistance for individual cases, R&D provides its specialists and its legal assistance service free of charge, without any obligation to join

In this respect, while confirming to you that our specialists are at your disposal, we decided exceptionally, and until the beginning of the social dialogue with the unions within the agencies, to allow you to access the consultations given by our specialized lawyers free of charge and without any obligation of membership.

Indeed, our actions are guided solely by our attachment to the basic principles of our institutions and can in no way be confused with an operation of simple union proselytism!

In the utmost respect of confidentiality, we undertake, if necessary, to submit to the competent authorities, IDOC, OLAF, etc., any information about proven dysfunctions that comes to our knowledge so that the necessary checks be carried out.

You may request an appointment with our lawyers by sending an e-mail to REP PERS OSP R&D or by calling 55676.

In response to the fears expressed, visibly fuelled by those who are still not fully reconciled to the fact that the time of the “gag order” is definitely over, we wish to confirm that our efforts are not in any way intended to overwhelm this agency by fuelling the fears of colleagues already worried about their professional future

In this case, by our note of 23 January for the attention of Mr. Carlini (link), we have limited ourselves to appreciate the invitation of our Secretary-General for the concerned three heads of cabinet to meet the new Director of EACEA and provide him with the necessary recommendations taking into account the results of the audits carried out within this executive agency, in order to best prepare him for his mission.

This approach of Mr Selmayr is fully justified, in view of the seriousness of the malfunctions noted in the audit reports, malfunctions from which the staff suffered and for which the management of the Agency is solely responsible!

Worse than “daily petty cowardice” and longer than “the last 6 months of misery”

On the one hand, in order to understand the detestable atmosphere within this agency, it is sufficient to note that in her farewell message on the occasion of her retirement, the acting Director regretted the “daily petty cowardice ” she had faced on a daily basis during the last 6 months of her career within the Agency, and confirmed that those were “6 months of misery”.

We cannot but note that, in the light of the reactions and requests for help that we have received from colleagues at EACEA, for the staff of this agency “misery” has been around for much longer than the last 6 months….

“We must (no longer) hide anything!”

On the other hand, we highly appreciated the statement of the new Director of EACEA during his first meeting with the staff confirming his will for a dialogue and reminding that “we must not hide anything”.

Deep changes which should no longer be delayed!

We can only invite Mr Carlini to start a real social dialogue, to carry out a serene and finally courageous analysis of the problems that are incontestable, and make the changes that can no longer be delayed!

A culture of silence which has been around for too long!

In addition to a reform of internal procedures and a profound reorganization of these services, a real change of culture is necessary: we must put an end once and for all to the “culture of silence” that has reigned for too long in EACEA.

A real dialogue must finally be established with the staff, dispelling the fears that critical opinions, even when they are incontestable, may continue to be considered as crimes of violating majesty or betrayals of an alleged esprit de corps, as if a European institution had become a sect!

In this respect, we were particularly concerned by the messages of our colleagues who told us about the “gracious invitations” addressed during the launch of the staff survey period to “encourage” them to allow EACEA to obtain highly satisfactory results that the management could later invoke to deny the magnitude of the problems and “better defend the staff of the agency against external attacks.”

While waiting for the publication of these results, we would like to reassure the colleagues who confirmed to us that, despite everything, they had decided to express their critical opinions sincerely and honestly, that they have absolutely nothing to fear.

Cristiano Sebastiani

President