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xyloglossie : n.f. [pédant, humour] nom parodique donné plaisamment à la langue de bois

In the last elections for the Brussels Staff Committee, thousands of you voted for the U4U list or for its candidates.  This is a great honour for us but a great responsibility too!

A responsibility to always speak frankly without embellishments and not in a wooden language.  We promise to do just that.

To represent to you in the best possible way and to be truly effective.  A Commission trade union has to have at least 400 members. To date, U4U has 200 active members.  This is a good membership for such a young trade union. But it is still little small if we take into account the issues we need to handle and the challenges of today and tomorrow.

At a time when our salaries are threatened, the European civil service is continuously under attack and the interests of the staff are often neglected, we need you to give us the power to continue our battles to defend your interests and to help you.

The British (19% of posts) have the following domains : foreign policy, climate, developpement, fiscal affairs, enlargement. The German : presidence, international cooperation,  energy and justice. France has internal market and education and would like to have agriculture. These three countries get 41% of all posts.

See the full list...

U4U has just made a first assessment of the last REC/CdR. Exercise.  More than 4,000 colleagues introduced an appeal (almost 20% of staff).

70% of the working group or committee opinions were discarded as "unfounded", 22% founded and in 8% of the cases, the Committee was not in a position to give an opinion.  Even if the greatest number of the appeals were followed up by Administration, the "unfounded" ones were rejected without any explanation.

This situation is not good for anyone!  Incomprehension and frustration increase.

Since the beginning of December, the Commission has been defending the indexation of our salaries for 2009 according to the Method (mechanism of Annex XI of the Staff Regulations) which is a Council regulation.  The Commission does not intend to withdraw its proposal concerning salary adjustments.

Up to now and despite the conciliation efforts of the Swedish Presidency and despite the opinion of the Council's own legal service which emphasised the Council's obligation to adopt before the end of the year the Commission's proposal, the COREPER did not do so.

As the European Agency underlined:  "the Union for Unity (U4U) trade-union asks the Commission to:

- remain firm on  its proposal and not modify it;

- introduce immediately an action for failure to act, in the event of non adoption of the Commission proposal by the Council.

It is requested that the latter "respects its legal and moral obligations with respect to the European civil service"

Today the following possibilities can be considered:

- If the Member States do not manage to agree on the Commission's proposal before the last Council of 22 December, the Commission considers that the Council is failing in its obligations.  This, as the Commission promised, would lead to an immediate filing of an obligations failing appeal against the Council.

- The Member States arrive at a unanimous compromise solution and change the Commission's proposal disadvantaging the staff.  In this case, we invite the Commission to file an appeal to render void this decision.

In both cases, U4U invites the staff to remain mobilised and united against the Council.  U4U calls for solidarity to our Council Colleagues presently on strike.  If you wish you could put some money in a fund account (the details will be sent to you later) to help those in need.  U4U asks the Commission to maintain its position and apply the Method.

U4U will continue keeping you informed about developments.

We stand together to face all challenges!

The Lisbon Treaty amends Article 283 TCE, which defines the adoption and the statutory amendment of legislation, and therefore Annex XI. On the other hand, the annual fixing of the amount of the salary adjustment is an lex specialis envisaged in the staff regulations, and it is not affected by this modification.

The Lisbon Treaty leaves many ambiguities which need to be removed by judging the risks and proposing solutions in order to set up a strategy framework for external action which will serve common interests and will be in line with the objectives of the Union.

The Administration wants to raise our contribution to the Sickness fund or reduce our reimbursements. A report from the PMO singles out a temporary gap due to the recruitment of Agents having lower salaries and to new rules applicable to refunds since 1st July 2007.

The U4U analysis shows an increase in income for 2009 of almost 5%.  Additionally, the PMO did not take into account the 2009 promotions and the 3.7% wage growth of 3.7% (if it is applied?) 

The Common Sickness Regime might have a cyclical deficit in 2007 and 2008, but this deficit is under no circumstances structural.

The U4U representatives in the PMO Board were against any increase in our contributions and any reduction in refunding medical costs.  The Board decided to set up a Working Group to examine the situation and is not taking any sides until the results of the group are known.

U4U united will oppose any unjustified increase in our sickness contributions and any cuts in refunding rates! 

The CCP of the Commission, the Staff Committee of the schools and the APEEE all obviously support these requests, but the APEEE, knowing that the possibilities of obtaining a satisfactory solution quickly are very limited, will discuss in their General meetings possible means of pressure and the palliatives which prove essential to avoid a catastrophic increase in the already intolerable conditions of overpopulation.

It is of the greatest importance that parents assist to these General meetings to defend the right of their children to education under good conditions.

To implement its programme, U4U formed an alliance with USHU in a trade-union regrouping which represents 12% of the staff.

U4U also contributed to the setting up of a trade-union platform holding the majority in the CLP and CCP.  Our candidate for the presidency of the committees took 2/3 of the votes presenting a political statement including many of our campaign concerns and put into evidence our working method which is to involve all staff in the drawing-up of proposals which concern everybody.

Lastly, very recently, U4U set up a co-ordination mechanism with all the trade unions aiming to exchange practices and point of view or even co-ordinate common actions.

We achieved some of our goals in a little time.  Our objective is to make this new partnership work in order to serve staff interests and defend the European civil service.

Humour : DG ADMIN reforms the REC/CdR

Obviously it is better to wait, as a promotion will give access to bigger presents!

Editeur: G. Vlandas  Responsable de la rédaction: R. Mohedano-Brèthes  Équipe: J.-P. Soyer, F. Andreone, F. Linton, J.L. Noir, N. Pascall