Summary Report of A&D-L activities in January 2005

Eurostat General Assembly (JMO/M6) of 07.01.2005, Written Questions.

In this occasion we published written questions to Mr Almunia (Commissioner for Monetary & Economic Affairs), Mr Hanreich (the new DG ESTAT Director General) and Mrs Bohatá (DG ESTAT Deputy Director General) of problems related to the following topics:

• Career Development Report (CDR)
• European School and Social Infrastructure
• Social dialogue and co-decision (Mitbestimmungsrecht)

To some extent our questions also served as sources of information for the newly appointed Commissioner. Mr Hanreich promised to meet with us before the end of the month to discuss the above in more detail.

In agreement with the Alliance and as one of the participating unions, we informed the president of the following issues:

• Access to justice for parents of children in the European Schools is urgently needed. Currently the Luxembourg courts have no jurisdiction over the European school.
• European School funding has been cut and this despite the introduction of the special levy which was earmarked for "extra" funding of the European Schools but now ends up in the general budget.
• The foreseen implantation of the 2^nd European School in Mamer has been strongly opposed by parents. The number of hours lost and the stress involved in ferrying children to and from a school many miles from Kirchberg risk having a negative impact on staff.
• If the school is to be built in Mamer (too far for the majority of the Officials) then it should only be a secondary school catering for older children. Younger ones need to be close to their parents’ place of work. Parents demand a proper feasibility study beforehand.
• Currently there is no guarantee that European Baccalaureate is accepted as the equivalent of the national certificate in the Member States (eg. Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany and some others do not recognise it as at least equivalent to their national qualifications).

We detailed further the issues introduced on the 07.01.2005. As a consequence, in the ensuing discussions, the following agreements resulted:

• We will meet again after the 2005 CDR has been closed to propose best, or at least better, practices for these operations
• Mr Hanreich agrees to contact other Director Generals in Luxembourg with a view to improve the situation of the Luxembourg II school in accordance with the parents’ wishes
• DG ESTAT to contact the Commission representative on the European School Board of Governors to remind him that the Mamer site will impose disadvantages and even hardships for pupils, parents and also ESTAT (due to the risk of working time being lost in traffic jams)
• Mr Hanreich displayed interest in and even some support for experimenting with co-decision (Mitbestimmung)
• Mrs Bohatá showed support for the cause of CPE and European School II children

Dans le cadre des nouvelles perspectives financières, la Commission (DG SANCO) a l’intention de proposer dans sa nouvelle stratégie un programme commun pour la santé publique et la protection des consommateurs qui remplacera à moyen terme et unifiera les deux programmes distincts existants qui sont actuellement gérées respectivement à Luxembourg et à Bruxelles.

Cette nouvelle stratégie pourrait permettre à la DG SANCO de rapatrier à moyen terme et définitivement la gestion du volet « Santé publique » (+/- 85 personnes) de Luxembourg vers Bruxelles contrairement aux récents engagements pris par la Commission dans sa communication du 11 février 2003 sur l’avenir et le renforcement du site de Luxembourg !

Notre syndicat, ensemble avec les autres organisations syndicales, veillera à ce que les engagements pris par la Commission et le gouvernement luxembourgeois en mars 2003 concernant le renforcement du site ne soient pas subrepticement remis en cause au détriment du personnel actuellement en place dans la Direction SANCO C de Luxembourg.

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The day before the General Assembly, a member of the hierarchy directed the Bottom Up Group to prepare a question with its answer. The Group did their best, but that was just not good enough. In fact, our informants report that they managed to fail twice; not only were they unable to give a correct answer to their own question, but even the question itself was declared to be unfit for public consumption by the hierarchy. Accordingly, the Group was instructed to be seen, but not heard. To make sure that the sensitive ears of 300 innocent Eurostat colleagues would not be defiled by a politically incorrect question, the Group received a special reminder on the morning of the General Assembly. This, of course made them extremely happy.

It is strange enough that staff members are instructed to ask a question, but that they are also told to supply their own answer is extremely bizarre. This might imply that some of the older members in the chain of command were overly concerned to smooth the Eurostat Assembly for the new Commissioner and the newer Director General. In that case, the A&D-L has shown much more respect for those two gentlemen by posing seven of the more important questions in polite and clear terms.

The A&D-L wisely published these questions well in advance and followed them up in discussions with the organizers of the General Assembly. Without excessive trouble, we did manage to push through our question number five (the one about investing the money from the special levy in the European Schools) all the way to the Commissioner.

Commissioner Almunia’s reply showed that he had not yet read all of the material presented in the A&D-L’s "Open Letter" and its tract "From Empty Promises to Empty Pockets". However, he did demonstrate a certain degree of openness to in discussing what will happen to the income generated by the special levy. We are deeply grateful for this openness, but we will be far more grateful for additional funds for the European Schools (instead of the recently imposed cuts in funding).

The Director General has agreed to discuss our remaining questions in a meeting with union representatives, to be held during the last week of January. We look forward to hearing his views and to presenting those of staff.

Of course, we are always willing to publish colleagues’ questions and demands, provided they do not clash with our fundamental values. For the A&D-L, there are no stupid questions.