*Update 29.09.2022 Local Agents in Turkey are now being paid in euro, thank you all for your support!* Generation2004 stands in solidarity with local agent colleagues in Turkey. We expresses our extreme concern on continued EU non-compliance with the 2021 court ruling concerning the payment of local agents there. The European External Action Service (EEAS), specifically the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey, has again been told that its unilateral insistence on paying local staff Turkish lira (TRY) and not in Euro is a violation of the rules (Republic of Turkey, Court of Cassation, 9th Civil Chamber Case No:2021/5672 Order No:2021/11022).
Some context: the EEAS converted the payment of salaries to TRY as a result of the salary adjustment exercise from 2014 to 2019. According to the Turkish labour code, in order to change payment currency, the explicit consent of local agents must be sought. If not, such a change is deemed unlawful. TRY has since then experienced a significant devaluation and therefore the salaries of local agents have suffered a significant drop in terms of purchasing power (inflation there is currently 48.7% (Eurostat)).
Generation 2004 would like to reiterate our unquestionable support and solidarity with the colleagues impacted by these involuntary and detrimental salary conversions. We underline the importance of any dialogue being a 2-way conversation, one in which management listens to colleagues and furnishes timely, full and factual replies to all concerns raised. In this case EEAS has half applied a common saying ‘money likes silence’: there’s no money but there is the silence.
Generation 2004 urges the EEAS and the Commission [1] to set out an action plan to address financial compensation to different interlocutors as soon as possible.
Since local agents are protected by their respective national law and there is no further avenue for appeal in this court case, protracting this unnecessarily will only result in further financial damage to the colleagues concerned in addition to reputational damage to the European Commission as an employer: both are unacceptable.
Generation 2004 therefore requests that the Secretary General, Mr. Stefano Sannino; together with Acting DG NEAR Mr. Maciej Popowski, address this issue as a matter of urgency. The Commission and EEAS cannot and should not preach the Rule of Law, while themselves choosing to have an ‘à la carte’ approach to court judgments.
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[1] Although EEAS has the sub-delegation of management of human resources in Delegations, the ultimate responsibility of staff under Commission is the European Commission.
