Council of the Union: termination-of-service for officials of the General Secretariat

On 20 March 2002 the Commission presented a proposal for a Council Regulation introducing special measures to terminate the service of officials of the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union. In a letter received at the Court on 11 April 2002, the Council requested the Court's opinion on this proposal. The purpose of the proposal is to authorise a termination-of-service scheme for 94 officials of the General Secretariat of the Council between 2002 and 2004 in order to take account of the need to renew professional skills. The Court has examined the proposal and issued the present opinion: - the increase in future pension costs due to the appointment of the new officials seems not to have been taken into consideration. - the proposal should define which budgetary mechanisms will be used to ensure that the savings will actually be safeguarded in the long term. - the preamble to the proposed regulation should explain the coherence of the scheme with the European employment policy objective of increasing the employment rate of older workers through flexible and gradual retirement formulas. - the Court takes note of the fact that no appropriate and clear selection criteria are established. - the implementation of the scheme should ensure that staff who are able to update their skills are fairly treated. - the Court is of the opinion that an early retirement system such as the one proposed should only be a one-off solution. In the future the focus should be on improvement of staff development policy.�