Gross basic salaries of EU officials based in Brussels or Luxembourg will increase by 0.4% in 2011, Commission officials declared yesterday.
Taken together with a 2.4% increase in the cost of living in Brussels, the new figures nevertheless represent a 2% reduction in EU officials' purchasing power, in line with a 2% average fall in the purchasing power of national civil servants.
"To arrive at a purchasing power decrease of -2.0%, the salaries have to be increased by +0.4% for staff in Brussels and Luxembourg," the Commission explained yesterday.
The EU executive said the pay rises would increase the total draft budget for 2011 by 0.0068%.
EU salaries are calculated by multiplying an index representing the variation of the cost of living in Brussels by an indicator measuring changes in the purchasing power of national civil servants (see 'Background').
Last month, provisional Eurostat figures on the remuneration of EU employees for 2011 had indicated that salaries would be reduced by 0.4% next year (EurActiv 05/10/10).
"The general trend among EU member states is that salaries have been going down, so ours will go down too," said a Commission official on that occasion.
But the EU executive has since recalculated after receiving updated figures on civil servants' salaries in the UK, where salaries have increased in line with inflation, and Spain, where pay has been slashed as part of a government austerity drive, leading it to propose an increase instead.
"We expect the member states to accept these proposals, because they are based on the law. In fact, they're based on a Council decision," a Commission spokesman said yesterday.
Not all EU officials stand to benefit from the revised figures, however.
"A salary increase of +0.4% in Brussels and Luxembourg does not mean that this increase applies to all places of employment for EU civil servants," the Commission said in a statement, explaining that the 2% decrease in purchasing power must be reflecting in all places of employment and would result in different adjustments in different centres.
"30% of staff will still be hit by a lower rate, particularly staff in agencies," an official confirmed.
Court case looms
The method employed by the EU executive to calculate Brussels salaries is currently under the spotlight at the European Court of Justice.
In January, the Commission decided to take EU member states to court over their refusal to back a pay rise for staff at the bloc's institutions and agencies (EurActiv 07/01/10).
The Council adopted a 1.85% increase in pay for 2010 instead of the 3.7% calculated in accordance with EU rules as laid down in the Staff Regulations.
The Commission yesterday justified that increase by citing a time lag resulting from the fact that "the annual adjustment is based on figures provided by member states that reflect developments during the previous reference year".
Some of the recent salary reductions at national level are therefore reflected in this year's adjustment, while others will influence next year's calculation, the EU executive explained.
"Criticism of the method last year was the result of the time lag before Eurostat received the national data," it claimed.
The court's judgement in the pending case is expected "in the first half of 2011," the Commission said.
Despite defending the complicated mechanism for calculating annual salary adjustments, which will be used until 2012, a spokesman for the EU executive admitted yesterday that "we're looking at how it can be improved".
"The work is ongoing, but we haven't reached any decisions yet," the spokesman said, suggesting that salaries of national civil servants in the new member states could be included in the index used to calculate the adjustment in future.
"But that's just speculation at the moment," the official said.
The Commission hopes to have the new system in place for 1 January 2013.
