Dear colleagues,
In May 2019, you voted at the European election to strengthen the European Union. A strong European
Union requires a strong European Civil Service. Therefore, your vote at the upcoming staff committee
election is needed.
FFPE is part of the Federation of European Civil Service, which is represented in all the European institutions
and defends our interest as European civil servants since 1962. This long tradition is reflected by our values.
We share a common vision of an independent, high performance European Civil Service. We want to make
the EP a more motivating, fair and rewarding workplace. We believe that social dialogue is better than
conflict and that negotiation is better than categorically rejecting new things.
For the upcoming staff committee election, we have identified four priorities:
- Defending the independence of the Civil Service: We need to start pushing back against the flagrant politicisation of the administration. We are against super-generous competitions for political group staff, fast-track careers and the political bias in appointments to senior management posts.
- Fairness and equal opportunities for all: Lately, we have seen a lot of reforms hastily imposed without staff consultation. They have led to arbitrary effects and double standards. We want future reform projects to be properly assessed in advance and discussed with staff representatives before being implemented.
- Job satisfaction, respect and work-life balance: The average amount of sick leave days, long-term medical absences and alleged cases of harassment, too, are on the rise. We want to reverse this trend. Improving working conditions is one way, establishing conflict prevention mechanisms is another.
- Preserving the attractiveness of the European Civil Service: The last reform of the Staff
Regulations was exclusively about cost-cutting and the next is already on the horizon. We will need serious staff representatives to defend us when pressure soon mounts again on our salaries, pensions and European
schools.
