If you are seconded [1] (French: ‘détachés’/ Franglais [2]: ‘detached’) at your own request (i.e. not in the interest of the service [3]) to another institution or to an agency, then this article is for you and concerns your pension rights. Everybody else can safely skip to another article of this newsletter [4] (but of course, feel free to read on if you are curious 😊).
If you are seconded at your own request, your monthly pension contribution should be calculated based on the grade you had in the Commission before this secondment (Art 39(d) of the staff regulations) – it should not be based on the grade in your host service. Often, colleagues are seconded at their own request to occupy a post in the host service that has a substantially higher grade than their post in the Commission. Therefore, this change in the grade for the calculation of the pension contribution can make for a substantial difference. This difference does not apply to your pension contribution only –your final pension will also be calculated based on the (probably lower) grade in the Commission.
The Commission has recently published administrative notice 05-2023 [5], titled “Change of the pension contributions paid by officials seconded at their own request”. This notice, together with its annex, explains the details. It seems that for some colleagues, the calculation for the pension contribution was until now done based on the (higher) grade in the host service. The administration is obliged to rectify this situation, but they have assured us that colleagues concerned by this change would be contacted individually.
Basically, those of you currently seconded at your own request have two choices:
- You can stay seconded at your own request. Then, you pay your pension contribution based on your lower grade in the Commission. In this case, your final pension will also be calculated on your grade in the Commission.
- You change to a leave on personal grounds [6] (CCP), after which you also have to submit a request for an outside activity [7]. If you then retire during your time in the host service, your pension will be calculated based on the grade you had in the host service.
If you want to request a change in your administrative status, you have until mid-May 2023 to do so; the administration needs a certain amount of time to process the related paperwork.
For any questions, do not hesitate to get in touch [8].
If you appreciate our work, please consider becoming a member of Generation 2004 [9].
Check out Pensions and invalidity allowances guide [10] for more information.
toolTips('.classtoolTips19','
Staff Regulations of Officials and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (\'Staff Regulations [11] (SR)\') are rules stating:
• fundamental conditions of service
• basic rights, duties and obligations of staff.
The SR have been reformed x 2 (so far):
• 2004 (Kinnock White paper)
• 2014 (Regulation 1023/2013 [12])
For a summary of stated intentions and real outcomes of those two reforms check out: European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019 [13]: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff
'); toolTips('.classtoolTips34','A new Procedural Handbook for Invalidity Committees was published 25.11.2022 de [14] | en [15] | fr [16]
See also Special Report No 3/2003 on the invalidity pensions scheme of the European institutions, together with the institutions’ replies [17]
See also Staff Matters - Corporate - Invalidity [18] (Home [19]>Staff Matters [20]>Health [21]>Specific events [22]>Invalidity) and the calculation of the allowance [23].
Under certain circumstanaces you can work elsewhere while in receipt of an invalidity allowance:
\'Persons in receipt of an invalidity allowance may not engage in gainful employment without the prior authorisation of the Appointing Authority. Any income from such gainful employment which, in combination with the invalidity allowance, exceeds the final total remuneration received while in active service as determined on the basis of the salary scale in force on the first day of the month in which the allowance is to be paid shall be deducted from the invalidity allowance.\' Staff Regulations, VIII Pension scheme [24], Article 13(2)
'); toolTips('.classtoolTips47','Trade union or staff association (OSP) [Organisation syndicale et professionnelle]');