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Social Dialogue on “External Activities”

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Update 21.02.2022: Check out the rules as they stand in 2022.

The Commission is currently revising its implementing rules on so-called “external activities”. These rules are meant to prevent conflicts of interest, either real or perceived, when active or former EU officials take on jobs or other duties outside of the institutions. Generation 2004 has been the most vocal staff organisation during the negotiations to denounce the fact that the rules proposed by the Commission make no distinctions between staff categories and between precarious staff and permanent staff: whether you are a former Director General looking for activities to keep yourself busy during retirement or a CA3b who is being kicked-out of the Institutions because your contract has reached the 6-year cliff makes no difference in DG HR’s mind. Continue reading social dialogue on “External Activities” →

Petition on the future of Contract Agents

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The NPS forum, with the active support of one of our members, is launching a petition on employment conditions and career prospects for the non-permanent employees and contractual agents at the European institutions. Follow this link to read the text of Petition 0178/2017. We encourage you to sign this petition, whether you are a permanent employee or not. Indeed, Generation 2004 thinks that non-permanent staff deserve a break after many years of austerity, just like non-permanent government employees in Spain.

If you don’t yet have a login on the European Parliament’s petition website, you will need to create one. This will take only a minute, just click on “register” at the bottom of the petition text. A small effort for a great cause! Once you have logged in, all you need to do is click on “support this petition”. Continue reading Petition on the future of Contract Agents →

The Senior Expert against the Contract Agent

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Les fonctionnaires sont un petit peu comme les livres d’une bibliothèque. Ce sont les plus hauts placés qui servent le moins…”  (Georges Clemenceau)

Recently, the staff representation has become very excited about a controversial email exchange between an informal collective of the European Commission’s Contract Agents called the Non-Permanent Staff (NPS) Forum, and some prominent staff representatives. Most of you probably don’t care, but it is nonetheless worth spending 5 minutes to understand what’s going on. To summarize crudely: the NPS forum, in its February newsletter accuses the staff representation of using their position to advance their own careers at the expense of the defence of the precarious Contract Agents (Quote: “…unions … do more damage than good, to all staff recruited after 2004, using public money and entertaining a friendly relation amongst themselves and particularly with some members of DG HR, for decades. We have … proof of the existing conflicts of interest, …. We also need to see who they are, before and after elections, we need to see their real CVs made public.”). Continue reading The Senior Expert against the Contract Agent →

Post-reform Equal Pay Day

Assistants, Contract Agents, Newsletter #22 – May 2017, Staff Categories, z Newsletter article Print This Post

Post-reform Equal Pay Day is a reminder of the unequal pay conditions affecting everyone who joined the European Institutions after the Kinnock Reform of 1 May 2004. The latest reform that took effect on 1 January 2014 has only made matters worse by introducing complications in the career structure, and by lowering the entry salary once again; more and more  contract agent (CA) staff are employed at ever lower salaries; the new category of assistants/secretaries and clerks (AST/SC), and the ensuing confusion generated by the automatic conversion of AST posts to AST/SC posts, puts new employees in a financially precarious situation while confusing and frustrating AST staff who suddenly find themselves sitting on AST/SC posts. Continue reading Post-reform Equal Pay Day →

BREXIT

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Join the G2004 discussion!

Some see Brexit as a sign to build the EU – and the EU civil service – stronger and better.

Others see it as yet another opportunity to cut pay and conditions for staff.

One thing is clear, Brexit affects everyone.

Generation 2004 is planning to organise a discussion session on 16 May to take stock of the situation and to identify the most burning issues on which we need to intervene in the coming months.  If you would like to be part of the G2004 Brexit discussion then send an email to: REP PERS OSP GENERATION 2004. We will get back to you with details of how to take part. Continue reading BREXIT →

DG TRANSLATION: Kids of a lesser god or just the preview of the EC of the future?

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Since 2004 the European Union has massively increased in population, number of Member States and languages, and has further expanded its activities in various domains too. In order to cope with this new challenge, the Commission’s administration has increased its staff albeit not in direct proportion to the population increase, thus striking a wise balance between new duties and the budgetary possibilities.

The budgetary effort, though, took a very heavy toll on all newcomers, those who now must sadly bear the labels Generation 2004 and Generation 2014 staff. Our salary conditions, pension perspectives, career structure, precariousness of working status and very reasonable fringe pre-2004 benefits were affected adversely by two subsequent reforms of the staff regulations in 2004 and 2014. Continue reading DG TRANSLATION: Kids of a lesser god or just the preview of the EC of the future? →

CA Dossier: Is the current situation sustainable?

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As mentioned in our communication sent at the beginning of April, Generation 2004 is disappointed by the outcome of the Conciliation meeting that took place on 6 April to discuss the General Implementing Rules of the staff regulations for Contract Agents. You might wonder why we give so much importance to these negotiations. After all, one could argue that they are only about implementing rules, not about the future of the EU civil service. However, we do see a direct link here, because we sense this is part of a silent revolution that replaces more and more permanent officials with Contract Agents so that according to our estimates by 2030 non-permanent staff with precarious contracts will represent more than half of all the staff of the institutions. The most striking data about this creeping change come from the annual reports of our sickness scheme (the latest one covering the year 2015 – available on demand). Continue reading CA Dossier: Is the current situation sustainable? →

Outrage over EC approaching 1000 senior experts/senior assistants’ nominations – widening career gap and waste of precious administration budget

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*Update 07.05.2025:  We recognise that we’ve changed our view on senior experts. While we have criticised this category in the past (as below), we now see the value in not pushing staff into managing people as the only way forward and similarly to allow those already managing people to step away from that to do something different.

Recognition for Senior Experts: Addressing the systemic neglect of senior experts in promotion exercises. These colleagues are often overlooked in favour of those who manage people, contrary to staff regulations that view managerial and expert careers as equal. (Manifesto 2024)

Continue reading Outrage over EC approaching 1000 senior experts/senior assistants’ nominations – widening career gap and waste of precious administration budget →

Growing inequalities in the Institutions

Administrators, Assistants, Contract Agents, Newsletter #21 – Feb 2017, Staff Categories, Staff Regulations Reform, z Newsletter article Print This Post

Oxfam, the well-known international confederation of charitable organizations has recently published its annual report on social inequalities. What about inequalities in the EU institutions? Since the infamous Kinnock reform of 2004, inequalities have greatly increased in the EU civil service. Before the Kinnock reform, careers of non-management staff were limited to the equivalent of AD12.

For a decade, between 2004 and 2013, this upper limit became AD14. The 2014 staff regulations re-introduced the AD12 cap, but in the meantime, more than 2000 ADs had managed to sneak in to the AD13 grade and another 500 to the AD14 grade, most of them without taking managerial responsibilities. Moreover, the 2014 Staff Regulations did not put an end to what could be perceived as an overly generous scheme: Continue reading Growing inequalities in the Institutions →

How the promotion system works, and why you might be disappointed with this year’s promotion exercise

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As every year, the decision of who to promote or not will be largely driven by a set of crude quotas supplied to DGs by DG HR. Because of the clumsy way quotas are calculated many hard working colleagues who have performed well will be left scratching their heads, disappointed at their lack of promotion.

To explain the problem, let us visualise two different DGS with 6 colleagues at each DG of the same grade, where the grade in question has a promotion rate set by the staff regulations of 33% (e.g. AST3->AST4, AD8->AD9, etc.) implying an average promotion rate of 3 years: Continue reading How the promotion system works, and why you might be disappointed with this year’s promotion exercise →