Open letter to Mme Nicole Fontaine, President of the European Parliament

Madam President,

Renouveau et Démocratie (R&D), the second largest trade union in the Commission, is participating actively in a process of reform that we felt was necessary long before the last College resigned.

R&D welcomed the new College's commitment to conduct a thorough reform of the Institution. This was entirely justified, not because everything has gone wrong in the last 40 years, but to remedy a number of dysfunctionings and confront the new challenges of an enlarged Union.

Unfortunately, when the process of reform was launched, the Vice-President with responsibility for reform put forward proposals that were widely quoted in the media and had substantial ideological content, and were designed to show an often critical, and unfavourable, outside world that everything was going to change, but did not bother to think about the final outcome of the proposals.

From the outset, R&D has been certain that coherent and seriously thought out measures would be essential if observed dysfunctionings were to be tackled, and appropriate, effective solutions found, but without unnecessarily calling the functioning of the Institutions into question.

It is now clear that the direction adopted by the Commission on 28 February of this year on career structures was hastily conceived. It was supposed to be the key point of the reform, but all members of the High Level Group (including members of the Administration) have rejected it for the simple reason that it was impracticable. Particularly with regard to Option B on the establishment of a linear career system, clarifications demanded by Group members have not been provided. Proof positive that an excessively ideological and media-conscious direction can lead down a complete impasse from a technical point of view.

As many staff representatives pointed out at the interinstitutional meeting on 28 June, a large number of staff members are grateful to the Parliament, and particularly to you, to the Bureau and to Secretary-General Priestley for the far-sighted and realistic position you have taken on the subject.

R&D has no a priori position in favour of one career structure or the other, and could support any project that served the interests of Institutions and their staff. However, in the current political and budgetary context, it is clear that a move towards a linear career system is not practicable without major upheavals in the functioning of Institutions, and for the very reasons identified by Mr Priestley.

Anyway, the objectives sought through alterations to the Staff Regulations can be achieved by other means, and at the price of a few changes to the Regulations and definition of appropriate ways of carrying them out. We have always made it plain that we are prepared to study any measure capable of guaranteeing that merit is taken further into consideration in the framework of the present system.

And while we're about it, there are no grounds whatsoever for believing that a linear career system would meet these objectives any better. In fact, movements from one category to another can be carried out by a system of appropriate promotion and training.

R&D has made detailed analyses of the reports and resolutions on reform established by the European Parliament, and wishes to thank MEPs who have taken the trouble to focus on this complex and gruelling subject. Through your good offices, R&D could like them to know that we entirely share their objectives of strengthening and improving the European public service.

R&D only wants to draw their attention to the importance of not forcing our Institutions (they are not laboratory specimens) to adopt measures that are out of proportion to the objective being sought, and might even be harmful to the way they function, and which would thereby meets the wishes of those who want the Institutions to be weakened.

In practice, the functioning of the European Institutions is based in fairly fragile political and geographical balances, and the system as a whole is also coming under extremely heavy external pressure. It is therefore important that the objectives of administrative reform should be achieved through genuinely operational measures, thereby providing all Institutions with greater flexibility: in this area, as in so many others, Institutions must stand together. We hope that the High Level Group, which will resume its work at the return-to-work in late summer, will find the resources necessary to achieve this result.

Sincerely
Jean-François Drevet
(signed)

c/c the R&D Executive Committee

cc Members of the Commission,
Members of the High Level Group
Secretaries-General of European Institutions
Presidents of political groups in the EP
Commission staff

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