EEAS
To the EEAS, long live 2025?
The EEAS Staff Committee met in plenary session from 4 to 8 November – with a special additional meeting on 4 December – to take stock of the administration’s current concerns in this period of political transition and budgetary constraints.
The new High Representative/Vice-President (HRVP), Kaja Kallas, also addressed staff at the start of her term on 2 December, motivating them with her dynamic words – we need more Europe – about the challenges facing the Union. This contrasts with the words of outgoing High Representative Borrell, who in his farewell speech insisted on the need to work harder….. It emerged from these meetings that nothing has yet been decided on the new directions for the EEAS, including the reform of the delegation network, which is worrying staff in the absence of any communication from the administration – U4U/USHU has even published an open letter on the subject – apart from confirming that the closure of delegations is not on the agenda and that a large part of the changes to come will essentially depend on the Commission. Reflection on the need to adjust the size of delegations in line with a review of priorities should continue at a strategic level, and nothing will be imposed on the new HRVP, who intends to put his stamp on the service, but this will take time. Stay tuned!
So 2025 will be the year of appointments. In the meantime, local staff will begin to have their working conditions, pension fund and medical cover reviewed. Working groups will be set up for this purpose. As a result, it has been confirmed that more and more fixed-term contracts will be granted where local legislation permits, as is already the case in some countries. It should be noted that the provisions on teleworking for local staff should also be the subject of social dialogue at the beginning of 2025. The texts governing telework for headquarters and expatriates are also to be reviewed in principle, although we have no visibility on the application of the current provisions. There is also talk of reviewing the ceilings for accommodation in delegations according to the functions carried out in the delegations. The internal competitions, mainly for contract agents (but possibly also for temporary agents), should finally be published at the beginning of the year. U4U is in favour of a career in the AC category continuing in the AT category. As a result, and in the absence of further details at this stage, we will have to wait until next year…
All of this in a context in which staff motivation is declining at the same time as the feeling of being outclassed and downgraded is becoming more widespread. The results of last year’s staff satisfaction survey (one year on…), which have just been published[1], bear this out, notwithstanding the attempt to highlight the positive aspects, such as the perception of an improvement in the fight against all forms of harassment. The lack of career prospects remains a major concern, with the number of positive responses falling by 4% since the last survey to 33%. The “bottleneck” explanation for the age pyramid in the EEAS has been proven wrong! At the moment, we have no information on the development of a strategy to remedy this situation in the coming years: what kind of staff should be recruited and how, which sectors should be developed? No answer at this stage either! One positive measure, due to come into force in January and which has just been the subject of social dialogue, is the move to 90% reimbursement of public transport costs for headquarters staff who agree to limit their access to car parks. The unions have asked that consideration be given to extending the scheme, at least to delegations based in a Member State.
[1] https://intranet.eeas.europa.eu/page/administration/eeas-administration-welcomes-you/surveys
News from the Foreign Service
Following the recent elections to the European Parliament and the appointment of a new Commission, the time for change is upon us, if only because of the cascade of political changes that will follow. The consequences of a possible adjustment of inter-institutional relations will have to be taken into account, not to mention a possible revision of the Treaties in the longer term. The distribution of portfolios (new Commissioner for Defence, CSDP outside the EEAS, etc.) and competences within the College could already alter the balance and have an impact on working methods.
In addition to this unpredictable context, pragmatic and more immediate decisions are already expected on the network of delegations at a time of budgetary pressure, even if adjustments will not necessarily lead to immediate savings. In the continuing absence of a methodology for the allocation of human resources, a thorough review is essential. The distribution of staff is still essentially the result of the distribution of posts at the time of its creation, mainly between the Commission and the EEAS, which has been given the bare minimum to become operational and exercise its newly defined prerogatives. The system has worked more or less well since 2010, on the assumption that the ‘one delegation’ concept would eventually prevail, with the introduction of flexibility clauses – the famous 20% – for the use of staff and the formalisation of ‘service level agreements’ to share operational costs between the institutions. Since then, the last Work Load Assessment in Delegation (or WLAD) was carried out in 2022, with constant resources and without any real involvement of the EEAS beyond a consultation exercise. As a result, adjustments are made from year to year, essentially on the margins during the annual rotations. This system has reached its limits and is regularly questioned by the Court of Auditors, the Parliament and the Commission itself. A review of the network is currently being considered, including the possibility of closing posts, which could have a major impact on delegated staff, starting with local staff who are by definition not mobile, and also on the number of contract staff needed to achieve economies of scale. The Commission (DG INTPA) still has ambitions to continue the regionalisation process, the implications of adopting the “global gateway” concept, freeing itself from the constraints of bilateralism and the involvement of local authorities in favour of an approach favouring private investment. The plenary meetings of the Staff Committees (Outside Union and EEAS), scheduled for the week of 4 November 2024, will have to question the administration’s representatives on the state of play in this area.
In a completely different area, the implementation of the rules on working arrangements and teleworking continues to vary from place of employment to place of employment. Measures concerning local staff have still not been adopted, which is a source of uncertainty and, in some cases, further frustration for delegations. In the absence of reliable and objective data, there is a growing need for a more in-depth satisfaction survey. Lastly, the functioning of the social dialogue in the EEAS, which has already been mentioned in these columns, remains a cause for concern, as no revision of the framework agreement has been finalised to remedy the shortcomings of the current system, which is being used as a pretext for boycotts by certain organisations, prolonging a chaotic situation. The resulting hostage-taking of the system is not conducive to easing the situation. We will return to this issue in a future edition.
EEAS
Limited progress in a context of social dialogue that remains difficult
The 25th plenary session of the EEAS Staff Committee was held in Brussels from 18 to 22 March. Although cooperation between the different trade union components remains difficult, the meeting took place in a constructive atmosphere with the hope of improving the work of the committee. Nevertheless, and unsurprisingly, discussions with the administration revolved around the same issues, with little progress made since the last plenary session. As usual, a number of meetings were held jointly with the Local Staff Committee for Non-Union Staff (CLP HU), whose plenary session was held in the same week.
So we’re more interested in the dates for the future than the new commitments. These include in particular:
- Careers and recruitment, with the implementation of the 50 measures already identified in 2017 (!) and regularly updated, which should be the subject of a special session in the coming weeks;
- Progress in implementing the “one delegation” concept under pressure from the Heads of Delegation Office;
- With regard to local staff, the possible reform of the management of the provident fund for the future, given that there is currently no basis for compensating for losses in 2022, the method of salary review in 2025, the codification of the duty of care towards local staff following recent evacuations (Afghanistan, Sudan, Gaza, etc.), which should be discussed in the EUDEL framework.
However, it is clear that the particularly tight budgetary situation significantly limits our room for manoeuvre: we are still €40 million short of the 2024 budget. Budgetary constraints have an impact on recruitment/promotion prospects: AST 10/11, certification, internal competitions (still scheduled before the end of the year for AD 6, AST 2 and AST-SC 2), AST/SC promotion, reclassification of local staff, etc. A Task Force is working on proposals for savings which could eventually lead to a reduction in the number of Delegations. At this stage, there will be no overall assessment of the distribution of the workload in delegations, such as the one that the Commission will carry out in 2022 (“Work Load Assessment in Delegations”, WLAD).
Teleworking and the new work organisation measures (flexitime) clearly continue to pose implementation difficulties, with few staff present in the headquarters offices. A satisfaction survey could be useful, including on the open-space policy, if only so that the joint committees can start to assess the situation and make proposals with a view to the 2025 review. It should be noted that staff have not yet had recourse to these committees (headquarters and delegation[1]), no doubt due to a lack of information, as it is already possible to appeal against decisions in this area. There are also no provisions for local staff in delegations, although this should soon be the subject of a social dialogue.
It should be noted that the administration has put forward provisions to combat harassment, but these are too often difficult to prove and cover only a limited number of cases, leaving only the provisions of Article 24 as a last resort. Measures for local staff have just been adopted. It is regrettable that the Commission and the EEAS delegations apply different procedures, particularly as regards the measures to be taken and even the sanctions to be applied.
Finally, in the background, the tensions over the revision of the Framework Agreement, the internal operating rules of this committee and even the decision that created it continue, with the paralysis of the social dialogue and the systematic obstruction by some of the appointments to the joint committees. While it would be in nobody’s interest to provoke new elections, it is urgent to find a modus vivendi that respects the votes of the electorate and makes it possible to defend the rights of colleagues.
[1] Functional mailboxes: EEAS JOINT COMMITEE WORKING TIME HQ, EEAS JC TELEWORK DELEGATIONS
The European External Action Service as seen by the European Court of Auditors
In January 2024, the Court of Auditors published a Special Report on the EEAS, 12 years after the creation of the service. It focuses on its coordination role, mainly with the Commission and its various Directorates-General (INTPA, NEAR, TRADE, ECHO, HR, BUDG, FPI) and the Council (and the European Council). Internal coordination is also particularly important, with 145 delegations and offices around the world. The finding is ” overall positive “, and the Court seems to avoid getting to the heart of the debate on the relevance of the complex institutional arrangement sought through the Lisbon Treaty. It is true that the Court’s role is to assess “performance” by means of a classic audit of operations, mainly from an organizational point of view, and not to venture into the political arena.
The institutional arrangements resulting from the Treaties, and in particular the Treaty of Lisbon, are particularly complex. The European Union’s competences in the field of external relations are divided between the various institutions and the Member States: they may be exclusive, shared, based on support and coordination functions, or even more specific in the field of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). If the European Commission sees itself as “geopolitical”, it is above all and thanks to the development of a diplomatic apparatus – the European External Action Service (EEAS) – under the authority of the High Representative Vice-President (HRVP) who has established himself as the centre of gravity. However, its effectiveness is based on its ability to initiate and coordinate policies in order to “pull in the same direction”; this constitutes the very legitimacy of the system, and this is what the Court of Auditors has attempted to assess through a performance audit, by reviewing working methods and the resources made available.
The Court’s report is based on a series of interviews conducted between 2022 and 2023 at EEAS headquarters, at the Commission, at the Council and in four delegations chosen to provide a geographical sample in terms of size, political importance, etc. The auditors also conducted a survey on Heads of Delegation. The results of this survey do not have any scientific statistical relevance, however, based on the sampling of responses given in the body of the text, which is often based on just a few responses.
A substantial part of the criticisms and recommendations concern the information systems for ordinary exchanges, but also the complexity of the tools for transmitting documents securely. The EEAS is poorly resourced and has had to separate itself from the systems set up by the Commission, for institutional and security reasons. The disparity of the systems makes certain inter-institutional interactions more difficult, even though most of them are interoperable. In addition, many staff are reluctant to invest in the training needed to use certain tools effectively. So, surprisingly, while this is an important aspect of setting up an effective IT infrastructure that poses challenges for any organisation, in the Court’s performance audit it seems to take on a disproportionate dimension and reduce the place of other, less “technical” considerations.
More substantially, the report shows that the EEAS’s coordination work with the Member States, through the Council groups, is effective. As a reminder, the EEAS chairs these groups, while the HRVP chairs the Foreign Affairs Council. In this respect, the Service plays an effective role in the preparation of these Councils.
On the other hand, a more nuanced assessment was made of internal coordination about annual planning and, more generally, exchanges between headquarters and the Delegations. Several Delegations have expressed frustration at the lack of feedback on their reports and, more generally, on their contributions to policy development.
Finally, the report also recalls the internal organisation of the EEAS and its staffing levels (2,790 in the delegations and 1,821 at headquarters in 2023) without, however, making any assessment of these figures. The main recommendation on resources calls for an assessment of the workload in the Delegations in line with the work carried out by the Commission through the Work Load Assessment in Delegations (WLAD) in 2022. This is based on the observation that the Delegations are generally understaffed in terms of diplomatic and political personnel in relation to the expected objectives, particularly when compared to what the Commission makes available to the network (3,492 staff), and that the principle of flexibility agreed to enable collaboration and abolish working in silos is not always satisfactory locally.
These are familiar situations face by colleagues who are in delegation. We have not yet achieved the concept of “One Delegation”, but this is a wider and longer-term debate. We will definitely return on some of these aspects in our forthcoming publications.
Staff representation at the EEAS:
Structures are slowly being put in place in a difficult context…
The elected members of U4U/USHU were actively involved in the adoption of texts concerning staff at headquarters and in delegations, in particular on the organisation of hybrid work, special leave and the prevention and combating of harassment. Thanks to our joint efforts, progress has been made, even if it does not always meet expectations.
This was the case for the social dialogue on hybrid working in delegations, where it was far from being accepted due to the nature of the tasks considered incompatible. As a result of the negotiations, agreement was reached on one day of teleworking for expatriate staff in delegations and a text is still awaited for local staff. We have also fought for a dynamic human resources management policy in line with today’s legitimate expectations, while the administration has taken the view that colleagues in delegations are privileged and should not therefore benefit from further measures considered as additional advantages. This is not a “bonus” at all, but the introduction of a modern management tool aimed at achieving a better work-life balance while ensuring greater efficiency in the workplace. Over time, experience will show that teleworking is not incompatible with the work in delegations and, if necessary, the agreement will have to be renegotiated on an objective basis, with a rendez-vous clause in 2025. In the meantime, as in the Commission, a joint committee has been set up to monitor implementation.
Local staff are today deeply concerned about the scandalous situation of net losses in Provident Fund (PF) contributions linked to fluctuations in the financial markets. For most local staff, the PF compensates for the lack of a pension scheme when they retire. To date, there is no compensation for local staff who have suffered losses as a result of investments made by DG BUDG. A growing number of local staff consider that the EEAS and the Commission do not respect the conditions of employment which imply compulsory membership of the PF (with a few rare exceptions) and tend to underestimate the impact of this issue, which has provoked strong reactions in several delegations. The Commission’s Local Committee Hors Union and the EEAS Staff Committee raised the issue with the EEAS administration at plenary sessions in mid-October. At the same time, the EEAS OSPs issued a joint message to all staff concerned. The EEAS aims to strengthen governance by involving local staff more in the management of the FP in the future, but in reality, nothing has been done. On the contrary, it seems that the EEAS does not intend to make any changes to the legal basis before 2025, which only adds to the growing sense of frustration among local staff. This is unacceptable and we will continue to take action in defence of our colleagues.
The EEAS also faces a difficult budgetary situation. The agreement reached by the Council and Parliament on the 2024 budget does not allow our institutions to function properly in the face of geopolitical crises. The budgetary authority has taken a restrictive approach in line with the Council’s position, leaving the EEAS underfunded by €114 million without any additional staff. The potential consequences of this situation remain to be analysed. This means using human resources more flexibly, setting negative priorities and more rigorously analysing the impact of new demands that may arise as a result of geopolitical crises. A task force has been set up to identify savings to be made and, in the longer term, to review the footprint of delegations, with all the consequences for staff, starting with local staff in the event of closure.
In this context, U4U/USHU will take part in this discussion and act in the interests of staff by recalling the principles and values that guide our actions.
Illegal arrest of a staff member by Iran
FAO : Director General Director-General INTPA Mr. Koen Doens
Dear Koen :
I hope you are keeping well.
Like many, we learned of the imprisonment of an INTPA staff member in Iran. The HRVP article indicates that Mr Johan Floderus (normally assigned to Kabul) has been illegally detained for over 500 days which is alarming.
This is clearly of great concern to all colleagues and as the CLP HU, we would like to convey our solidarity with this colleague and his family and receive assurances from INTPA , the Commission and the EEAS that all is being done to secure his release as soon as possible.
Any information that can be shared is welcome and we understand the sensitivities around this issue.
We hope for a rapid solution to liberate Mr Floderus.
Helen CONEFREY
President CLP HU
5 septembre 2023
EEAS Internal Competitions: launch of first set of competitions on 3 April 2023
(note from DG Di Vita dated 30/03/2023)
Dear colleagues,
As part of the EEAS recruitment strategy announced by the Secretary General on 01 February 2023, the EEAS is organising a series of internal competitions to retain in-house talent and offer career perspectives to our staff.
As a first step, on 3 April 2023, the EEAS will launch the application procedure for three internal competitions covering the following grades: AD 9, AD 10 and AD 12. Please note that, as required by the Staff Regulations, these competitions will be open to AD officials and temporary agents in the AD function group only, subject to eligibility criteria that will be detailed in the Notices of Competitions published on 3 April 2023.
The period of application will run from 3 April until 5 May, 12:00, CET. Late application will not be accepted.
A second set of competitions, open to officials, temporary agents and contract agents, will be launched in the autumn and will cover grades AST-SC2, AST 2 and AD 6. These grades have been selected to allow contract agents to be eligible as per article 82.7 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants. More information regarding these competitions will follow in due course.
The number of quotas on the reserve lists have been carefully calculated to match the prospects of the EEAS to replace retiring permanent staff, while also recruiting laureates from EPSO competitions.
News regarding the Notices of Competitions will be posted on the Intranet on Friday 31 March 2023, with the application links, which will be activated on Monday 3 April. A set of Frequently Asked Questions will complement provisions laid out in the Notices of Competition. Furthermore, dedicated functional mailboxes (one per competition) will be available for additional information.
On behalf of the Secretary General and DG RM, I wish all candidates the best of luck!