EU staff threaten new strike against pay and benefit cuts

The 24/7 Party people go on strike,again?

"You gotta fight
for you right
to paaarrrtttyyy !"

I think it would be a significant and symbolic example to accept the cuts in the name of AUSTERITY...

Some of the overhead should be reduced, simply put- in terms of being efficient, as this also has been happening across the board in so many EU countries.

Perhaps the word empathy comes to mind.

I forgot to answer one of the questions:
"However I do wonder why the 6% cut is concentrated on the lower pay scales rather than those who could more reasonably afford it".

The technical reason is that we had until 2012 a special leave of 5%, but calculated only on the salary exceeding the minimum salary of an AST1.
The new levy could be 6%, but calculated on the entire salary AND allowances.

Of course lower salaries will be more impacted, and you ask (politically) why. I don't have the answer, but you should ask mr. Cameron, that in many occasion publicily expressed his hatred for the average worker.

Mr. Mike, I see that you spend a lot of time posting comments everywhere without any constructive or informative meaning: you just express your frustration and gut feelings.
Whatever is the reason, I am sincerly sorry for your personal situation. However, my suggestion is to use your time in a more productive way, like enrolling in an online course, reading books and in general trying to improve YOUR skills and work situation instead of pushing for lowering other people's.
I thought that was an Italian characteristic (I am Italian, I can be politically uncorrect...), but I see that it is not.

@Emanuele

For a Eurocrat, directly collaborating on austerity programs, your remark concerning "lowering other people's [work situation]" is quite unappropriate, don't you think so? Ask you Greek, Spanish and Portuguese national colleagues.

@EurActiv.com

Some background information would be needed for those of us not working in the EU Institutions to understand what the fight is about: It would be very useful if you added a fact box giving examples of how much salaries, pensions, benefits for spouses and children, expat allowances etc add up to at the moment, and how much they would be reduced.

@Mike,
I am trying hard to put on your shoes.
The personal situation you describe (prices raising because of the arrival of highly paid jobs) is not any different in London, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Rome, Switzerland, Doha, Dubai and every other major town I know.
So said, I also find difficult to believe that 40.000 EU Jobs can make a difference in an area of 2 mil people.
On the contrary, since I work in Luxemburg, I must fight in order not to be pushed out by basically anybody (being the median salary here more than 4000€/month).
Unfortunately I don't have a solution to that.

The second argument you often cite is the taxation, and here the discussion is very very subtle.
First of all, we pay indirect taxes as everybody else (except an initial VAT exemption when we relocate for some stuff) and of course all local taxes that are used for the local community.
Our salaries are paid with a chapter of the EU budget, and our taxes go back in the exact same budget.
If I give you 10 euro, and ask back 3, I gave you 7 in total and your perceived tax rate is 30%.
If I give you 100 euro, and ask back 93, I gave you exactly the same amount but the tax rate is 93%.
Is the first guy an outragious priviledged because his tax rate is only 30%?
That is why the continuous claim that "EU staff" don't pay taxes is simply false. We simply don't pay taxes on the income to Member States that pay our salary.
(And I could add that we cannot deduce ANYTHING).
The same reason could be applied to any Member State public servant, but in any country there is a complex system of detractions/deductions so that it is easier to reason in terms of gross salaries also for them.

@Mike, just as an example from my hometown.
The average salary for a MANAGER in Milan is 2000/2500€, while the average cost of a 100sm apartment is around 400.000€.
In other words, not even Italian middle managers can afford to buy anything in the city and are "pushed out", unless they have a huge family fortune.
And in Milan, there are no EU jobs...

@Emanuele

Firstly, people who drive up rents and push out locals in Paris, London, or Rome for that matter, do so with their own money.
Eurocrats, however, have pushed us out with OUR money -that is our tax-money.

55,000 Eurocrats plus lobbyists plus their resp. families in a city of barely 1,000,0000 for sure IS a problem.
In a multi-million city the size of Paris, London or Rome it would have been less dramatic.
If you know the history of your home country well, you should know what the unification of Rome -and the influx of bureaucrats- meant to the locals. Just watch any neorealist movie. Or read Pasolini.

Secondly: the tax system of Eurocrats working and living in Brussels should be compared with the Belgian tax system.

For example:
In Belgium, whereas a Eurocrat earning € 7,600 per MONTH pays an overall tax rate of 11%, any citizen -Belgian or foreign- earning € 23,900 per YEAR already pays an overall tax rate of 28%.
In case you wouldn't know, the latter is someone who earns gross less than 1,000 €/month more than someone who is unemployed and on benefits.

Besides, you don't pay a penny of taxes on your hefty allowances. Solely the expat and lodging allowance, for instance, already add 21% to your base salary. 100% tax-free!
I do not even mention the other allowances, which are lump sums/month. All are tax-free.

Sadly for you I know Italy quite well -I worked at La Sapienza, by the way. And I am rather familiar with "affittopoli" and "svendopoli".
I understand you take privileges for politicians and senior officials for a given, but in many countries this is not the case.

I just hope that by June 12th, this nightmare will be over.
I am fed up with developers erasing the last green areas in Brussels to build gated communities for fat-cat Eurocrats or raise more offices for the European Commission or local politicians expropriating people because the EU wants to extend the highway to Schuman,...

Give the bureaucrat what belongs to the bureaucrat: a wage. And no more.

Mike also conveniently "forgets" to add special tax of 6% to his calculations. As well as almost 12% pension contribution paid by EU, as compared with 0% pension contribution paid by Belgian officials. 6%+12%+11%=29%, with NO deductions. 28%+0%=28%, with plenty of deductions (including for a cleaner - seriously - mortgage, children school, house repair, solar panels etc etc etc), is actually less.

have a nice weekend.

Please, Tom, mike is leaving in a world of his own. Grazing parks for our flats when for years we can not get a school open... please.

He is right in one way: Brussels is certainly no London or Paris. Nobody would come here if it was not for the EU.

have a nice weekend + bye

The arrogance of the responses to Mike is most interesting.

He was born in Brussels, and yet he should move out because the EU has decided to move in? This strikes me as similar to ethnic cleansing.

As for the EU's struggles to find specialists because of a fall in real salaries... I regard that as potentially a good and useful thing.

To me, it's a sign that high quality personnel might be working at productive tasks in private enterprises, adding value rather than consuming it.

@puzzled

Since you are a newcomer, as I once was, when we are dealing with Eurocrat income figures we use month amount (you’ll soon understand why). As in "the first €2,325". This figure refers to the first €2,3245 a Eurocrat earns per MONTH.

"It's a different world, isn't it?" you might ask.
To us, mere mortals, figures in this range that are exempted from taxes would be annual income figures. Well, not so for Eurocrats.

Eurocrats like to pretend they are doing larger-than-life sacrifices because they pay a 6% levy on their salary. Actually, they only pay 6% on the part of their monthly salary that exceeds €2,325. Also, the 6% levy only applies to base salary, thus not on any of the allowances.

Does this help you in getting a feel for it?

By the way, if I am not mistaken, they currently are NOT paying this levy at all.

I understand Mike who cannot afford property in his native city - Brussels.

As a European civil servant, I have to recognise that, since Brussels is such a sh*thole in terms of public transport, criminality and the general quality of dwelling houses, there are only few places where to buy or rent a decent property in Brussels or its surroundings.

And yes, we "Eurocrats" are obliged to buy or rent property in those few places for exorbitant prices in order to be able to work in Brussels. And yes, because of that locals are driven out of those places.

As concerns the salary, its pretty simple. You get what you pay for.

I consider myself as somebody with a high "market value" and if my salary is cut by 10% or more, I'm gone to the private sector or back to my home country.

So basically, bigger salary cuts mean less and less competent people working for EU.

And if the EU institutions won't be able to fulfill their duties because of the general incompetence and the lack of personnel, it will be the problem of the same Member States and not of the former "Eurocrats".

@Mike,
sometimes you try to "obfuscate" simple discussions with figures not relevant to the discussion.
For tax rates, we have 3 situations:
1) EU staff is paid with EU money, without any deduction/detraction; as I explained to you, you can apply any arbitrary tax rate (even 99%) and the result doesn't change a bit because taxes go back exactly in the same budget
2) Member States civil servants have a similar situation (they are paid by national budgets and their taxes go back to that budget) BUT there are deductions and detractions, so in order to make things right they must have the same tax system of private sector
3) Private workers are paid with private money, so the tax rate MAKES the difference between categories

Again, as another reader pointed out, you conveniently forgot to say that we already pay 11% for pension contibutions (and the proposal will lift it to 15%), while for example in Germany civil servants pay... ZERO. Public pensions are not money accumulated, but a part of the retribution shifted.

To conclude, of course you don't HAVE TO move out to search better conditions, but you CAN do that.
Each of can can choose between staying with family or trying to make a career. Today I just realised that my parents will never really know their grandchildren and spend time with them.
And no, mr. Cameron, this doesn't fade with the years as you publicly suggested when speaking about our expatriation allowance.

@Emanuele

‘.. you try to “obfuscate”’

It is not my intention to obfuscate. On the contrary, that is why I use clear examples. I notice Eurocrats do not seem to like this.

Tom insinuated that the overall tax rate would be 28% + 6% + 11%.
I have simply proven this is not the case.
Apparently, you lot don’t like someone to reveal the 6% fallacy.
I did not “conveniently” forget about the 11%. I did not explain it because I simply do not know where the figure comes from, whether or not it is in place, what it is/will be applied to, whether there are any exemptions, whether it is 11 or 15%,…

“… figures not relevant to the discussion”

Once more you insinuate my comments are irrelevant. Let’s see.

What you call EU money is in fact the EU budget. It is multi-annual and worth over a trillion Euros. Your salaries are part of this budget: they go under the so-called Administration section, more precisely.
The money is actually the member states’, and hence the EU citizens’. If the money would belong to the EU, the net contributing member states couldn’t question it, the above article wouldn’t have been published and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Now imagine you would have to pay an extreme tax rate, say 100%. Then nothing would be left of your salary (you would be working for free) and all the money would indeed go to the EU.
But… your tax system is not extreme. It is very generous. Not to say extremely generous: apart from the allowances of which nothing “goes back to the EU”, nor does much of your base salary (thanks to an ultra-flat tax system).
It is because the EU, in budgetary aspect, is not self-sufficient and ever needs more money the net contributing member states are asking questions.

Since I do not work for the EU, I don’t know its staff breakdown.
I used the 7600 €/month example because it is less than halfway between the lower (2,325€/month) and higher pay grade (16,094 €/month). I find it hard to believe that less than 20% of staff wouldn’t even earn half of the maximum possible.

Please do no longer worry for us Brussels natives (in case you would ever have): even if the Council doesn’t get through all its proposals, we will no longer have to move.
June 18th will be the beginning of the end of the nightmare, or the party –depending what side you are on.

There is one thing that I see (inadvertently or purposedly) ignored in all these comments.

Back early last February, the Council (i.e. *ALL* the 27 EU member states) agreed on a common EU budget from 2014 to 2020. For the same timespan, they agreed to make savings, and the administration heading was no exception.

On top of the Commission reform proposal, which is expected to make savings worth about EUR 1 bn, another 1.5 bn were added, which makes a total of EUR 2.5 bn in savings. But the measures proposed by the Council want to go way past those figures. The Council itself clearly wants to act in breach of its own agreement, which is downright treachery and must be fought will all valid and available means.

One might or might not agree argue that this is enough: I personally think this is an adequate and fair share of austerity measures for EU staff. Now, if those hawks want to make more savings, then the issue must be reopen in an extra summit of the Council; otherwise the agreements currently in force MUST be adhered to. Period.

Might be, but we should see the detailed breakdown of this figure and the terms of the EC's request. I don't have the detailed figures at hand, but I would be inclined to think that only a teeny-weeny part of this budget is needed to cover administration expenses: most of it (I mean, practically all of it) should/will go into the different EU policies.

Now again, we or might not agree that the EU bugdet composition is appropriate for the time we're living in. But in the Council's stance I sense a great deal of demagogy and populism rather than a real and concrete will to reform the EU.

Most of these decisions are not in the hands of EU staff. But yet, it's too easy to turn them into scapegoats. Which is not acceptable.

The EU is an international organization, so it must be compared compared to equivalent bodies. All international organizations have many branches/offices around the world, so that in order to maintain uniformity their employees cannot be subject to national taxation: any taxes must be held back directly by the employer.

If there is no tax-collecting third party (such as a national administration as is the case with normal employers/employees), then it's just a formal question. For example I, employer, can say your gross monthly salary is 5000 EUR, while your take-home one is 2500: I hold back the remaining 2500 from your payslip so you are subject to a tax rate of 50%; alternatively I can say I give you a tax-free salary of 2500 EUR. What's the difference? *Absolutely* none actually, but in the latter case there always will be some dimwit who will come along complaining about the tax-free salary.

Therefore in case of international bodies it makes sense to compare net figures only. While there is still a minority of EU staff who enjoy very high salaries, it is an unquestionable fact that the 2004 reform brought along a wave of new staff whose payslips are much, MUCH lower, in many cases much lower than those of the private sector of *many* EU countries, and comparable to those of several EU member states' public administrations.

Finally, there is an issue about value and quality of the work. But the average EU-bashing narrow-minded moron will never concede that a good proportion of EU-staff might be well-prepared, hard-working employees who just deserve their monthly salary. Just like anywhere else.

@Mike, you are right.
We cannot compare EU salaries with the ones of diplomats: EU's are fully transparent and subject to critics from all the mikes in the world, while the others are completely obscure.
May I remember that Mr. Schulz tried many times (unsuccessfully) to have a clear picture of how much money the permanent representations make?

People that are trying every (il)legal way to slash 50.000 other people salaries don't even have the decency to reveal their own.

Mike (whichever "Mike" you are),
first and foremost, the EU is a *public* organization, so it makes absolutely *no* sense to compare it to any private company or body, because their governing mechanisms and principles are totally different.

On the other hand, EU institutions *must* be compared to other international organizations. There's plenty of them out there: NATO, UN, CERN, FAO, ESO, OPEC,... you name it. Each one has got its own purposes and goals, but they all have two important in common: they are there to promote cooperation (but the interests alike) of their members, and they are largely (or totally) funded by public money coming out of the pockets of their member states (which ultimately is always taxpayers' money).

The EU is one of them: of course, its main goal is to promote cooperation and redistribution of resources across Europe. But to some extent, it is also used by the individual member states to promote their national interests. I don't know which EU country you come from, but rest assured that YOUR fellow countrymen working for the EU institutions are there also to protect YOUR country's national interests. In this view, geographic balance of staff is important, and for this reason you must offer a package which should be appealing enough to the citizens of any member state, and not just the less wealthy ones.

A study published by the EC in the early 2000's showed that the package offered back then by EU institutions was very much in line with that of other international org's and some private companies (For sure I recall IBM was part of that survey, most likely others but my memory is failing me right now). The situation has since changed significantly and post-2004 EU staff now have worse employment conditions (this is not to say they are bad, but they're worse for sure) then their colleagues working for other international organizations. This is to some extent OK and makes up for the fact that other international org's will often send their representatives in dangerous or remote locations, much more than the EU does. BTW most international organizations' staff are NOT diplomats and they do not enjoy the same privileges (in particular, immunity).

I really don't know about US civil servants, but they are citizens of a much more homogeneous country from almost all standpoints (language, culture, etc) with a long-standing tradition of democracy and common values, whereas Europe has a millennium-long tradition of conflict and division. This just can't be ignored, and is the main reason why the EU was born.

Finally, it's about the principle of acquired rights: when EU staff were hired, they chose to be part of EU also because of the package they were offered. Now it would be unfair (and unlawful, too) to slash their salaries. I have no idea what your job or salary package is, but no matter what it is, you wouldn't be so happy about the idea of getting a cut, would you? For sure not. Period.

Bottom line: as I already wrote in a previous comment of mine, the savings package that was agreed upon last February is more than adequate to the times of austerity we're going through. Anything on top of that is just plain, downright abuse and, as such, is to be opposed with all available means.

@AngryCivilServant

Indeed, there is absolutely no salary-related information on other organisations.
I only found an article on the former head of the IFAD/FAO who intended to save $2,5 million on pensions but, at the same time, was renting a superb mansion for 597,000 $/year.
Ironically, being the sole organisation to publish its pay & perks online, the EU ends up being the only one to take criticism! Indeed, that isn’t quite fair.

You’re right on the acquired rights: at the time you decided to join the EU on certain salary expectations.
I guess introducing a post- Šefčovič statute, next to the pre and post-Kinnock statutes, won’t exactly enhance the working atmosphere at the European institutions.
end
With regards to the US civil service, however, your reasoning just is not convincing. Using different languages & cultures to justify a separate income tax system seems to me one bridge too far.
Nor is your argument on cooperating entities: many an extremely talented post PhD works at a foreign university on local conditions.

Like many other citizens, I have once lost a job because my employer delocalised. Thanks to the Schengen treaty, my employer –without a twinkle in his eye– could give me the choice: Take it or leave. (Ironically, the only time I have been on an expat package in the EU was in the UK.)
After half a year I quit, came back to Belgium and luckily found another job. I had to take a 30% cut in salary. My case is rather common since the outbreak of the financial crisis.

It makes perfect sense to decrease expatriate and residence allowances over time. I cannot see any act of barbarism in it. Even large multinational companies move their expatriates to local payroll once they have been working a decade in the same country (unless the working conditions are not safe).
I don’t believe it is the taxpayer’s duty to fuel the Eurocrat jet-set lifestyle.

You have created a common and liberalised market, including a ditto labour market, yet you keep clinging on to your jobs-for-life and tax-free allowances.
Isn’t it time for Eurocrats to start practicing what they preach?

Mike,
it is sufficient to google around and you will get many interesting results about employment conditions of other EU and non-EU international organizations:

UN https://careers.un.org/lbw/home.aspx?viewtype=SAL
CERN http://jobs.web.cern.ch/content/appointment-conditions-professionals
ESO http://www.eso.org/public/employment/intstaff.html

I could swamp you with more links but the situation is pretty much the same. Although with some differences, ALL international organizations do offer a base (tax-free) salary + a wide range of benefits such as expat and household allowances and schooling contributions. In the case of CERN and ESO, for example, the expat allowance amounts to 12% of the basic salary, and lasts for the entire duration of the contract, regardless of its type (both fixed-term and permanent). The EU institutions are probably among the most transparent ones, but as I already wrote their salary packages are arranged according to common principles.

As far as European (and I mean European as belonging to the European continent, not just the European Union or the eurozone) international org's are concerned, the point is straightforward. If it is decided that in times of crisis appropriate economies are to be made throughout ALL such organizations, then it's fine, we all have to make some sacrifices; but if only about the EU institutions are affected, then it's just plain abuse and demagogy. It's as simple as that. Period.

Once again, let me stress the fact that ALL of the above mentioned organizations offer completely tax-free pay and perks. The EU is just no exception to this general (and also legal, I'd say) principle governing such international bodies. And as such, it makes NO sense to be aiming just at EU institutions. It's either ALL of them, or NONE of them.

BTW because of my personal situation I am not even entitled to the expat allowance, so I wouldn't even be affected by any measure regarding its reduction. But yet it does matter because it is all about the underlying principles and equity. And also because it would set a dangerous precedent.

Then, the Schengen agreement does not have absolutely *anyhing* to do with delocalization; in fact it's about loosening border control, but by no means will it prevent delocalization. And the free circulation and market brought along by the EU won't prevent localization either. Bear in mind that delocalization will always be causing businesses to search for higher profit, regardless of continent, race, religion, distance, ecc.

Indeed you have a really distorted perception of what a common market is all about. It has opened up a whole lot of new opportunities for EU citizens, and by the introduction of a single currency it has also created new business opportunities for enterprises and private citizens alike.

Please, let's stick to facts instead of blindly throwing mud at the EU just out of plain frustration and anger.

Mike,
no, Mike, you are *absolutely* wrong here.

Delocalization takes place regardless of borders and free circulation agreements. Within Europe there has been a bit (I mean, a TEENY-WEENY bit) from the "western block" to the eastern countries, but it had started long before the bulk of the free circulation agreements came into force. For example, some car production factories had been moved from Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. to Poland, Czech Republic and Romania long before they joined the EU in 2004.

The bulk of delocalization, however, started taking place decades ago to faraway countries with impressingly lower labor costs and less regulated marketssuch as China, India, the Philippines, and so on. We do not have any agreement whatsoever with these countries: yet, most objects we use on a daily basis carry a "made in China" label, not a "made in some damn European country" one, not even a "made in Romania" or "made in Greece" or "made in Poland" one: just "made in China"! Big companies do not give a flying **** about race, religion, distance, politics. They just care for one thing: pure profit.

As far as the euro goes, having a strong common currency would be a big advantage, were it not for two things:

1) Some principles underlying the introduction of the euro are ill-posed (e.g. having a common currency but not sharing the debt).

2) Some countries, managed their own resources in the worst possible way. Their high public debts date back to decades years earlier, and have nothing to do with the introduction of the Euro. In one case (Greece), the accounts were even falsified.

Actually, the euro kept interest rates low, allowing the worst-managed countries to enjoy a period of relative prosperity. The problems of these countries are not to blame on Europe or Germany, but on the irresponsibility of their governments. Sadly enough, their citizens are paying for their rulers' mistakes: they should have been kept out of the euro since the very beginning, unless they proved to really have applied major reforms (which hasn't happened yet to date).

I may concede that when the crisis broke out, the most well-off countries (e.g. Germany) imposed a package of too severe measures of austerity to protect their interests and investments. But the difficult times some European countries are going through at present stem mostly from their own problems, and not from Europe. I happen to be a national of one of these Mediterranean countries and I know very well what I'm talking about.

Mmm… I don’t think I am absolutely wrong –nor are you absolutely right. As ever, reality isn’t black or white but rather greyish.

Lorry drivers, handymen etc. from Western EU member states do not compete with “made in China”. They compete with their peers from Eastern EU member states, and the free circulation of services in the EU makes this unfair competition perfectly legal.

The EU signs bilateral trade agreements. Bangladesh, for example, has become the world’s leading textile manufacturer mainly because of one single trade agreement with the EU. Portuguese, Spanish and Italian textile manufacturers overnight found out what a trade agreement is (and does).

Imagine Eurocrats would be paying Belgian income taxes (since they are working in Belgium) and that the EU would be a company listed on the stock exchange. What would happen?
Most of the 55,000 EU jobs would be now either in Romania or overseas in India, the Philippines etc.
In the first case, hardly anyone of the current staff would go to Romania on an expat package. In the latter, a handful of very senior officers would be on an expat package for about a decade.
Welcome to the real world.

Mike,
1) EU institutions are public bodies. Following your reasoning, each and every public body in the EU should be turned into a private company; this is just nonsense. Public administration cannot be outsourced, because it has to stay under the direct control of the country it belongs without being exposed to the influence (either actual or potential) of any external force/power.

2) The introduction of a single common market might indeed have introduced some competition in some sectors, but to say that businesses were delocalized because of that is simply wrong. In exchange for that, the single common market with a single currency offered a host of new opportunities for those companies and private citizens who were willing to take up the challenge. Actually for some countries like Italy and Germany, foreign trade is a very profitable source of income (for Italy, foreign trade is what prevented the economy from crumbling, since its domestic market is going through a phase of worrisome stagnation)

3) Some European countries do not even have the minimum wage. As far as EU institutions are concerned, in the past it used to be relatively easy to get hired, but now you have to pass very difficult competitions, with a 1-in-100 chance of ending up in a reserve list, which BTW does not give any guarantee of finding a post. Officials have to show competence in two foreign languages other than their own mother tongue, and this is also a prerequisite for getting the first promotion. With salaries that for post-Kinnock-reform staff are 40% lower than those of their senior colleagues and which, in some cases, are even below the minimum wage (this is the case of some AST employees working in Luxembourg). And last February's agreement brought along a package of significant savings.

Please answer this question: why go way beyond what has already been decided and above all, why just for *EU institutions* and not for all European international organizations? The latter case, although still questionable, would be much more justifiable in the view of a continent-wide "wave" of austerity. Otherwise it's just plain and blind demagogy.

The whole EU project is working as planned. Lowered salaries, export of jobs, cuts to pensions, etc,,,, is just what the corporatists have in mind all along.

dear Mike, it is not me who chose Brussels as an EU capital. If I had a chance doing the same work somewhere else, for example in Prague or London, I would not hesitate long. No money will compensate the dog's crap one can see everywhere in this city.

@ all Carmens, Jas etc.

It is with great sadness that I read your messages. Living in Brussels on an tax-money fuelled expat package must be unbearable. All EU citizens no doubt feel for your terrible hardship.

Because you once passed an entry exam you are of a different, superior breed and only deserve the very best.

But, if it helps, Brussels citizens also deeply regret that the EU didn’t settle in a highbrow city of the like of Vienna, a metropolis like London or any sun-drenched spot along the Riviera or the shores of the Iberian Peninsula.

May COREPER look after you.

All the best.

Talking about a partial view and narrow-mindedness:

I illustrate the impact the caprice of 140 freewheeling Eurocrats has on an entire neighbourhood, thousands of students and researchers, a language school that teaches foreign children French in the park and garden, biologists, amateur sportsmen and, last but not least, nature itself.
To set the record straight: I myself do not live close to Delta.

You, however, solely point out YOUR benefits and YOUR lifestyle. You would favour anything, I repeat: anything, to paying your share and not asking for more than what belongs to you. Are you by any chance a devoted disciple of Machiavelli’s? In that, one can use any means necessary to preserve your featherbedded lifestyle?

To people who are not on an expat package, Brussels now is even less than marginal.
The city would benefit greatly from individuals who have made up their mind and come to Brussels to work with the EU on the European Project, rather than the current tax money-devouring jetsetters who, even after 35+ years Brussels, still claim an expat package and who joined the EU mainly because of this package.

Mike,
which part of "every reform impact ONLY post-2004 staff" you don't understand?
Why you support an harsh punishment of motivated and competent 30-40 yo people, just because the previous generation enjoyed high salaries that ARE NOT IN PLACE ANYMORE or enjoys a pension that were fully paid by their contributions during the active work? (yes, the EU scheme -differently than any member state scheme- has always been in actuarial equilibrium, meaning that actual pensions are fully covered by past payments).
Why you support that my generation must pay pension contribution related to an hypotetical final salary that will never materialize?

You are just driven by a distorted sense of "justice" that is obviously what is more convenient for you.
Remember that most of your interventions are borderline with plain slandery, especially because here and in many other comments/previous posts you used false figures and NEVER apologised when you were corrected.

Typo:

I don't work with the EU and rely on secondary sources.

Mike,
I sympathize with you about the "140 freewheeling Eurocrats" problem. I repeat, in some years' time it will no longer be possible for such things to happen.

Re your comment "You, however, solely point out YOUR benefits and YOUR lifestyle. You would favour anything, I repeat: anything, to paying your share and not asking for more than what belongs to you[...]": this is simply not true. As far as I'm concerned I don't belong to the group of "tax money-devouring jetsetters", and this is true of about half of the whole EU staff. But you EU-bashing dimwits find it too difficult to make any distinction.

Our fair share of austerity? The Commission's proposal plus with last February's agreement are more than enough. Period. A salary ranging from 2.5K to 4K EUR/month, which is of course decent but nothing exceptional (even compared to what's available in Belgium itself), is nowhere near sufficient to support what you call a "featherbedded lifestyle". Please stick this into your mind.

As far as the higher-paid colleagues are concerned, even if their take-home salary is twice or even three times as high as mine, they just can't be forced to suddenly give up on 1/5th or their monthly income: it would be downright abuse as it is a fundamental principle of law that changes like these must be introduced gradually. And the austerity path laid down by the 2004 reform is precisely going down this route and is more than adequate for making the EU administration more cost-effective.