Last month, in her reply to President Emanuel Macron’s address Pour une Renaissance européenne (also in English at the site), CDU’s leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK) mentioned the need to end anachronisms and called for taxation of EU officials… This prompted an immediate reaction from Commissioner Oettinger who came out in the defence of staff and reminded Mrs. AKK that EU officials DO PAY taxes and, on top of it, they also pay a Special Solidarity Levy of 6 to 7%.

While, at Generation 2004, we appreciated Mr. Oettinger’s quick response and thanked him for doing so (EN version), in our thank you letter we also reminded him that, although on top of our salary taxation we all pay a 6 to 7% Special Solidarity Levy, this levy is not paid by pensioners, who in many cases receive higher pensions than the salaries of lower grades and Contract Agent colleagues in active-service. So much for solidarity!

We also took the chance to highlight that true solidarity could have been achieved by applying the levy to pensioners, which would have allowed a lower rate to be applied to everyone, to the benefit of those with lower salaries!