Neil Kinnock is doing his damnedest to
‘modernise’ the European public service. All
civil servants have been urged to give their opinions on,
or to be informed about, the proposed reforms: this has
taken a variety of forms including numerous memos
circulated ‘to all staff’, consultation
exercises within services, questionnaires sent by
external firms to ‘judiciously’ selected civil
servants, lunchtime conferences with
‘so-called’ experts in the field, consultations
with the trade unions, and mass meetings of staff.The
White Paper has been published, and we are all about to
be reformed and modernised, our careers based solely on
merit, and appointment procedures made squeaky-clean
transparent. Old-style practices (particularly the
reprehensible practice of ‘parachutages’) that
went out of the window just a year ago with the fall of
the ‘Santer’ Commission – of which Mr
Kinnock was, of course, an eminent member – are
clearly things of the past…
Sadly, it is becoming increasingly clear that Mr
Kinnock wants to change everything – so that things
stay exactly the same – particularly as far as old
habits are concerned. Here are two examples of what we
mean:
1) On 20 October 2000, R&D sent a letter to
Neil Kinnock drawing his attention to the offer
of one (two) A2 post(s) in DG MARKT, Directorate of
‘Financial Institutions’. According to
information that has come into R&D’s
possession, the considerable delay in advertising
this post was due to the fact that enough time had to
pass for the person who had been ‘sounded
out’ to gain the minimum professional experience
demanded by staff regulations (i.e. two years at A3).
It goes without saying that the ‘sounded
out’ candidate had worked in the office of the
President of the previous Commission.
R&D has just learned from the minutes of
meeting 1471 of the Commission on 21 March 2000
(PV(2000) 1471), item 8, Administrative and various
budgetary questions (SEC(2000) 472/2), that when the
Commission was presented with six candidates for the
post of A2 Director DG MARKTE.F, it decided to
appoint the person that R&D had been suggesting
to Mr Kinnock since October 1999. Just another
example, it seems, of an ‘over-transparent’
appointment procedure!
2) At their meeting held on 23 March 2000 to
discuss the offer of three A2 Director posts in
Directorates B, C and E in DG Eurostat (see
SEC(2000)1471, item 8, 5), Chefs de Cabinet suggested
that the Commission should pass simultaneously to
phases in articles 29§1c and 29§2 of the Staff
Regulations so as to broaden the range of
applications without removing those already made
under article 29§1a.
Reliance on external recruitment
(article 29§2) can only exacerbate the
demotivation of DG Eurostat staff, and particularly
its 30 or so Heads of Unit; but above all, it runs
the risk of further weakening the independence of our
public service: not to put too fine a point on it, to
whom will the fortunate individuals recruited from
outside be accountable?
R&D again urges staff to make up their
minds on the basis of objective facts – and not on
promises and well-intentioned discourse, or the
Commission’s desire for genuine reform and for a
break with how things were done in the old days. R&D
will certainly not be shirking its responsibilities, and
will continue to denounce the ‘old practices’
of the ‘new’ Commission at all levels.
The Executive Committee
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NOM/NAME
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Membres du Comité Exécutif: Ianniello
Franco, Adurno Giuseppe, Zorbas Gerassimos,
Ravagli Alessandra, Uguccioni Bruno,
Docherty Michael, Vassila-Souyoul Erica, Bochu
Claude, Drevet Jean-François, Napolitano Raffaele,
Crespinet Alain, Domingos Dias.
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