The Council has come to the conclusion that our salary adjustment for 2008/2009 is completely outrageous.
In 2009, the Council is ready to breach the law and to violate the very decision it took back in 2002 and 2004 when the method was agreed for 10 years and included in the Staff Regulations. The Council seems to be surprised with the 2009 figure of 3.7%. R&D notes that this is exactly the result of the Member States’ decisions to raise the salaries of the staff in national administrations back in 2008 and early 2009.
Nothing more, nothing less.
One year delay
There is a one year delay in the impact of pay in national civil services in the salaries of European officials:
the current proposal is based on pay increases in the reference Member States between July 2008 and June
2009, and it will be applicable from July 2009 until June 2010. The adjustment of the salaries of EU officials
for the following exercise will be based on pay changes that are currently being approved by national
governments.
The EU civil service punished for increases given to national administrations?
The eight Member States adopted significant increases during the reference period (July 2008 to June 2009),
which taking into account deflation in some of them have even larger impact on purchasing power, e.g. the
3.3% increase in salaries in Spain compounded with deflation of 1% gave a 4.3% increase in the purchasing
power of Spanish civil servants.
| BE | DE | ES | FR | IT | LU | NL | UK | |
| Adjustment | 3.4% | 3.1% | 3.3% | 3.2% | 3.0% | 3.5% | 3.7% | 2.1% |
| Inflation | -1.0% | 0.0% | -1.0% | -0.6% | 0.6% | -1.0% | 1.4% | 1.8% |
| Purchasing power increase | 4.4% | 3.1% | 4.3% | 3.8% | 2.4% | 4.5% | 2.3% | 0.3% |
Therefore asking for a 3.7% pay adjustment for the period July 2008 to June 2009 is completely in line with
what was awarded to national civil servants. Moreover, if there are decreases of pay in the eight Member
States of the sample next year, they will certainly be reflected in our future pay adjustment.