Staff Regulations of European Union officials: amendment of the Regulations

The objective of this report is to fulfil the Commission’s obligation under Article 65(1) of the Staff Regulations and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union. It provides data pertaining to the budgetary impact of remuneration and pensions of Union officials in the light of the 2015 update of the remuneration and pensions of the officials and other servants of the EU and the correction coefficients applied thereto.

The 2015 update of the remuneration and pensions of the officials and other servants of the EU is implemented in accordance with Annex XI to the Staff Regulations and shall take place before the end of the year. It is based on statistical data prepared by the Statistical Office of the EU in agreement with the national statistical offices of the Member States that reflects the situation as at 1 July 2015 of the Member States.

To recall, Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1023/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2013 amended the mechanism for pay update, known as 'the method', by allowing for an automatic update of all salaries, pensions and allowances. To that effect, the relevant amounts and weightings contained in the Staff Regulations should be understood as reference amounts and weightings which are subject to a regular and automatic update. Those updated amounts and weightings should be published by the Commission within two weeks after the update in the C series of the Official Journal (OJ) of the EU for information purposes.

It is recalled that no update of the remuneration and pensions of the EU staff serving in Belgium and Luxembourg shall be made in the years 2013 and 2014. Consequently, during a period of four years (July 2010 – July 2014) the adjustment of remuneration and pensions of officials and other servants of the EU was as follows:

• in 2010, the application of the method laid down in Article 3 of Annex XI to the Staff Regulations resulted in an adjustment of 0.1 %;
• for 2011 and 2012 the result of the global approach to settle the disputes regarding the 2011 and 2012 adjustments of remuneration and pensions led to an adjustment of 0 % and 0.8 %, respectively;
• furthermore, as part of the political compromise on the reform of the Staff Regulations, it was decided to freeze remuneration and pensions for the years 2013 and 2014.

The combined effect of the non-application of the method for salary adjustment in 2011 and 2012 and the freeze of remuneration and pensions in 2013 and 2014 resulted in around EUR 3 billion savings over the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and around EUR 500 million per year in the long-term.

Overall the last review of the Staff Regulations generated around EUR 4.3 billion administrative savings over the MFF. In addition, specific measures with no direct budgetary effect, such as increased working hours and reduced annual leave with no salary compensation are worth around EUR 1.5 billion for the institutions.

It is in this context that the Commission presents its report on data pertaining to the budgetary impact of the 2015 annual update of remuneration and pensions of the officials and other servants of the European Union and the correction coefficients applied thereto.