The austerity axe is falling across Europe. The only place it won’t fall is here in Brussels, the capital of overpaid, overprotected and underworked officialdom.
Klaus "does my grade look big enough in this" Welle
But first of all, I’m very sorry about the unscheduled break. I’ve had one of those months when I just can’t see the point – don’t worry, I won’t go there.
For my day job, I’ve been looking at the cohorts of officials who earn more than David Cameron, the British Prime Minister – read it here.
I guess the point of the piece is: Why should the EU be given a reprieve from the austerity axe?
Is Herman Van Rompuy really worth it? Or Baroness Ashton? – This couple, recently described by Helmut Schmidt as “Mr and Miss Nobody”, were among the best paid politicians in the Western world until the euro slipped against the dollar in recent months.
Is the European Economic and Social Committee worth a penny? Or the CoR for that matter? Would anyone notice if they were axed?
How many of the 34,000 eurocrats in the Commission are really worth the very generous pay and perks?
During my research, I came across the interesting case of Klaus Welle, pictured above. If you didn’t know it already this great man is the secretary-general of the European Parliament.
Welle is an AD16 grade European civil servant, his gross salary is €216,301.08 a year, not counting all the perks that he is entitled to by droit d’eurocrat.
He commands the real power in the fake EU parliament – not over the 736 elected MEPs but as the chief of the unelected 6,166 civil servants who outnumber the deputies by over eight to one and who really run the place. (BTW, this figure does not include the 1,510 accredited parliamentary assistants, of whom more later).
Obviously, Herr Welle is very important indeed. Quite how important, or self-important, he is emerged when I was looking at parliament’s payroll to count the number of officials on the EU’s three highest paid, AD14, AD15 and AD16, grades.
The numbers are 16 x AD16, 26 x AD15 and 106 x AD14. All very straightforward but I was struck by the listing of one solitary official, a German, who was listed as AD99 – a salary grade that does not exist. “What was this about, is it Welle?,” I asked the parliament’s excellent press service.
Here’s the answer:
“You were right that the post labelled “AD99” refers to the secretary general. There isn’t really a grade called “AD99” – that is a shorthand for the fact that the post of secretary general is regarded as outside the main framework of staff grades, being formally more senior than everyone else. However, I am informed that the salary of the EP secretary general is the same as that of a director general (ie an official of grade AD16).”
What are we to make of this? Awarding yourself a special grade to show how important you are is the mark of a mandarin, a member of a caste, who is alive to the tiny sensitivities of privilege. Vanity and bureaucratic status not merit or ability are the measures of such a man.
What is his purpose, his mission? Welle, speaking to some newly recruited parliament officials in March, made it all clear.
“He said – our job is not a common one, and we have the responsibility to try to make “things move forward”, and “hopefully in the right direction”.
[...]
We should ‘push the limits’ to make the parliament gain power and weight in the institutional architecture. Help MEPs to use ‘the grey zones’, even of the Lisbon Treaty, to extend the sphere of influence of our institution.” Read the full account here.
It says it all really.
Naturally, Welle has played a leading role in the parliament’s obscene cash grab to increase the staff allowance for MEPs by €3,000 per month by next year. The surreal justification being that after the Lisbon Treaty our striving euro-deputies are completely overstretched and swamped by the pressure of work. If you believe that then you’ll believe anything.
As my research showed, there are already 19 assistants, or researchers to MEPs, who earn €91,136 a year, 12 pocket €84,508, there are another 21 who trouser €77,529 and so on.
The staff allowances need to be increased? Is this really needed? Does anyone else think so outside the Brussels bubble and Welle’s warped AD99 worldview?
Oh, Welle has also overseen spending decisions that will provide chauffeured limousines for the 24 chairmen of committees as well as a luxury courtesy car for Hans-Gert Poettering, the former parliament president.
We don’t need these people or the drain they represent on stretched resources. If national budgets are to be slashed then it is time to take the axe to the EU too.
Before you ask, I do not support austerity as an economic strategy. It’s little more than recycling and the current cuts binge is not future or growth orientated – more here.
However, that doesn’t mean I support state spending as it is presently constituted. For example, as a libertarian leftie type I have never welcomed the billions of public spending squandered on the security and anti-terrorism agenda that makes us less free.
A significant part of the so-called “welfare” state in Britain today is concentrated on policing people, hectoring claimants, nagging parents, pestering the “obese”, stigamatising unruly children or anyone else unlucky enough to fall into officialdom’s clutches.
I would gleefully relish and raucously cheer the sackings of the increasing legions of the securocrats, inspectors, police, petty officials and other “community” officers whose job it is intervene in our lives on the basis that we are too feckless or dangerous to be left to our own devices.
Get rid of them all, much of the 21st century’s state is downright anti-social – and that includes the EU.
#1 by Sven on June 21, 2010 - 6:44 pm
“How many of the 34,000 eurocrats in the Commission are really worth the very generous pay and perks?”
About 30,000, I guess, give or take a thousand.
To be completely fair, you should not lump politicians and hard-working officials together and you should compare net wages (after the european tax, and the special levy) with wages of e.g. NATO, UN or ESA. Besides, the system with the 16 grades was a way to cut wages, especially at the entry-level.
#2 by Bruno Waterfield on June 21, 2010 - 7:00 pm
My figure would be lower, based on many a conversation with officials sick of their unsackable freeloading colleagues who punch the clock and cash the pay cheque but not much else. The Kinnock reforms might have been better than nothing but are you really defending the untouchable status quo these people enjoy? The Commission should be throughly purged every five years at least.
To be fair, I agree EU salaries are comparable to Nato, the UN etc – so what? I would entirely abolish Nato. The UN could certainly take a haircut too, especially those development officials cruising the shanty towns behind the tinted glass of air conditioned SUVs. Only the ESA is underfunded.
The real comparison is to many, many, many millions of public servants who, while working for fraction of the cost to taxpayers and carrying out socially useful jobs, are feeling the cold wind of austerity blow while the eurocrats continue to bask in the knowledge that they, alone, are untouchable.
The worst democratically elected politician is better than the best official for one reason: We can get rid of them unlike the Welles of this world.
#3 by Slartibartfas on June 21, 2010 - 8:27 pm
Some people’s favorite word association to EU is “unelected”. In some cases this makes perfect sense. In others it is perfect nonsense. I fear this article features a few o the latter category.
The employees of the Parliament, other than the MEPs, are branded as “unelected”. I am not sure what this should tell me. Is the dear author expecting or demanding that all these jobs should be up for general election? Are they in Westminster? Or is it only that he loves to throw around the word “unelected” no matter if it looks very clever or not.
#4 by damien on June 21, 2010 - 10:23 pm
Not only do the Brussels elite earn these excessive salaries, they also benefit from a special rate of income tax that is lower than many low income tax countries such as Ireland.
Then there is the ‘relocation’ allowance which is in my opinion regressive in that it is calculated as a percentage of total salary. So the costs of relocation is a heavier burden the lower one is down the salary scale. And the payment is often made to people who have been living in Brussels for many years and who don’t have to move.
Then there is the housing allowance and dependents allowance and holiday money(in addition to generous paid leave) to travel ‘home’.
What is people’s salary for but to live and pay rent, mortgage, clothes, food etc. They don’t need to be paid ‘expenses’ on the side for what other people have to pay out of their salary; the supermarket checkout operator, the nurse, the school teacher etc.
Recently Irish politicans have become subject to much media talk about their expenses and perks. So much so, that some reforms have been made. Brussels is a different matter, the gravy train might make headlines every autumn but there is not the momentum and public anger to force reform. It is embarrassing for MEP’s and others but it is the case of business as usual after a few days.
Brussels needs to pay its staff good salaries but people aren’t forced to take jobs there, they shouldnt be creaming expenses for the privilge. It needs to change.
#5 by Sebastian on June 22, 2010 - 1:23 am
The EU employs 170 000 people. The British civil service alone employs 532 000.
#6 by Sean; Murtagh on June 22, 2010 - 8:17 am
How many are worth their exhorbitant salaries; at a guess I would say not even one!
#7 by KLN on June 22, 2010 - 11:16 pm
The Daily Telegraph has slammed the €180m cost of the European Council’s new building in Brussels. Why doesn’t Bruno Waterfield write a blog entry that compares that to the UK parliament’s £235m Portcullis House from 2001? After all, the UK has a much smaller population than that of the EU.
#8 by Maria on June 23, 2010 - 12:02 pm
Thanks for that! I absolutely agree and it has been my talking as well. Austerity measures should start here in Brussels in order to set an example. But no, instead we have Commission employees protesting and suing for the enforcement of their annual pay rises while workers all across Europe have to deal with pay-cuts, the intermission of basic allowances (like holiday money or a 13th salary – if they even get that in the first place) or even temporary unemployment. I would very much like to see a real probe into the Commission payroll (rather than the EP) as I do not believe that all 34000 employees are worth their wages….or even working full-time at all. The – admittedly gossipy – stories that I have been hearing over the past years are those of EC employees that are still getting paid their full (!) wages + allowances despite the fact that they have for example been on sick leave for years (spending the sick leave in their home countries not reporting back to their bosses at all….meaning the EC has no idea what they are doing over there) or were so bad at their jobs that they got transferred to a position that didn’t actually exist/was created just for them because they could not get sacked (I call these ‘ghost-postitions’ and I bet there are loads of those in the EC)…not to mention the stories that I heard from lots of stagiaires that had to fight hard against boredom due to incompetent or light-working senior staff. I of course do also know that there are lots of hard-working and well-educated people working in the Commission who are there for valid and good reasons and that are doing a great job, so don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think that we live in the 1950s/60s anymore when working abroad was more of a drag than a free choice and those appointed to do so needed to get offered great compensations in order to take up these positions. 99% of all people working in the ‘bubble’ today are in Brussels because they want to be here – it’s their free choice and a privilege on top of that – and I don’t understand why European tax payers (of which the majority quite probably earns a lot less per month or year) should be compensating them for that privilege by means of relocation or housing allowances…not to mention the allowances that EC staff receives for marrying (that apparently does exist – I was flabbergasted myself – even though men nowadays don’t need to provide for their ‘little’ housewives anymore!). As polemic as this all sounds, I would really like to see a study of what could be saved in the European institutions alone by cutting those allowances that are quite probably remainders of the 50s and 60s when the EU was not yet what it is now, when the world was not yet the globalised place that it is now, when people were not yet as cosmopolitan and keen on living in and experiencing other countries as they are now. We here in Brussels are featherbedded but I urge that it is absolutely necessary for us to stay in touch with reality in order to address the European problems and advance the European project with the right measures/regulations! And real life for many Europeans at the moment is that of hardship and austerity.
#9 by Patrick on June 23, 2010 - 4:04 pm
Maria, I suggest you take a look at equivalent pay for entry-level positions in the larger EU countries. A qualified professional applying for a civil service job in the UK can expect to earn substantially more than his EU counterpart. The same can be said in Germany.
The point is that, as with any employer, the EU needs to hire the best talent available and if salaries are going to be cut back, the brightest people will work elsewhere, leaving the EU with the situation which exists in the UK where only those who aren’t able to get a better job work for local government.
Another point is that the EU has effectively been on an austerity drive since 2004 when the Kinnock reforms reduced salaries and made career progression more difficult. Unlike before, whatever their experience, officials are only recruited at entry-level positions. Added to this are the cut-backs in recruitment, which has focused mainly on the new member states.
Finally, I don’t think the need to persuade staff to relocate should be underestimated. While a young person can easily change country, this is not necessarily the case for someone who is married or just prefers the lifestyle of their own countries. Let’s face it, Brussels and Luxembourg are hardly high on the list of career destinations.
#10 by zeleneye on June 24, 2010 - 11:46 am
Bruno, I am seriously worried about you. Judging by the increasing bile you vent, you must be in serious pain from the huge chip on your shoulder. Seriously man, get it seen to.
#11 by Maria on June 24, 2010 - 12:45 pm
Patrick, point taken in terms of entry-level salaries, yet what is your answer regarding the inefficiency of the whole institution where loads of people are indeed not worth their money in terms of working hours or effort they put in (despite their talent) – be it for reason that they can’t be fired anyways or that they really do not have that much to do. Redtape needs to be cut, and along with it those positions that are redundant…the commission needs decluttering. This would necessarily and unavoidably be accompanied by a lot of reforms covering all areas – the civil servant (unfirable) for life system just being one of them. I think that’s how a lot of money can be saved on the one hand and freed up for (justified and well-deserved) payrises on the other. And I am certainly not against those personnel receiving relocation/housing allowances that actually are being relocated by ‘order’ of their country (especially not if you have a family). Yet those moving here and applying voluntarily do not necessarily need this nor are marriage allowances a ‘zeitgeisty’ compensation practice – on the contrary. There is still too much excess going on in the institutions and this should be minimised in order to set an example. This is most certainly not a rant against healthy and fair salaries that reflect and award the effort you have put into your education and into your job (and that attract talent for that matter). And yes again, I certainly do agree that salaries should increase on a regular basis …but based on work assessements and reflections of your quality of work. Not everybody that initially looks like a talent and passes the concours is necessarily good in his job.
#12 by Hub Jongen on June 24, 2010 - 5:23 pm
Congratulations Bruno for telling the facts.
Keep doing it. We will copy them to more people and if we are lucky, sometime something might happen.
#13 by Patrick on June 25, 2010 - 10:36 am
Agreed Maria. I think that the reforms will eventually come, and there will be not only Kinnock II but III and possibly IV. Interesting to note that many of the staff now recruited are contractual agents on short-term contracts who are paid much less and have no pension/social security rights.
#14 by George Marcopoulos on June 28, 2010 - 9:00 am
I am a mechanical enginner MSC, 57, with a knowledge of 7 languages. How much would I earn working for a multinational company? Much more than what I do in Parliament. You compare our salaries with the ones of the public sector in the EU countries. This is your mistake. To join the EU we have to pass through very difficult entry exams which is not always the case in many EU public sectors.
#15 by Slim K on June 28, 2010 - 12:06 pm
Brünö says: The real comparison is to many, many, many millions of public servants who, while working for fraction of the cost to taxpayers.
What sort of a fraction? 1/100? 32/56? 120/100?
The numbers show that the fraction in question is about 3/4. In other words, EU servants (that is unit head and down, upper levels are politicians) get about 1/3 more than CSs in Middle Europe.
Out of that 1/3 you pay for kindergraden, for school (unless you want the abysmal European Schools), nannies (no grannies to draft at a short notice), loss of home-country friends… Hardly a life of luxury.
Of course, some 20-year veteran eurocrats are paid way too much (12-14000 take-home pay) for doing the same job as a fresh Polish colleague (4200 take-home pay). Not mentioning the incredible money the translators make (they are 30% of all EU admin expenses).
#16 by Denise Lillya on June 28, 2010 - 7:34 pm
Looking at the blog posts it’s this one that has all the comments; the EU still navel-gazing.
Either the EU moves forward – or it’s an end to the whole project in my view.
#17 by Marcel on June 29, 2010 - 11:02 pm
Do not forget, national bureaucrats who work implementing EU directives/laws/etc should ALSO be counted as EU bureaucrats. The scam is too transparent, the reality is that over 50% of all bureaucrats in EU effectively work for the EU, even if they are ‘officially’ working for the national governments.
And the difference between national and EU is, in national bureaucrats work for ELECTED and DEMOCRATIC politicians, in EU they work for UNELECTED and UNDEMOCRATIC politicians. This is significant. We must guard our democracy and roll back political integration.
#18 by Andre Perrault on June 30, 2010 - 1:29 pm
If a person brings up the topic of waste, inefficiency and excessive salaries and expenses they are accused of somehow being “anti-EU” – this is a pity.
If the EU cannot be as democratic as a nation state (apparently it can’t) at least make it more transparent and reduce the terrible waste.
There should certainly be strict restrictions on the salaries and expenses (receipts please) of bureaucrats and MEPs and we should know what they are doing with their time. Is that unreasonable?
#19 by George Marcopoulos on June 30, 2010 - 6:29 pm
Does anyone of those attacking EU officials know how many times a year we EU officials have to go back to our countries to assit our ageing parents? Sometimes as many as eight when many of you have just to drive to their parents a few miles away (if you still do it). Do you know how many days a year you can have sunshine in Greece ? 360 As much as you can have rain in the Benelux. So please stop attacking us. Without the EU servants Europe would return to the national egoisms which will not help our continent compete with China and the USA
#20 by Elaine on July 1, 2010 - 12:44 pm
Bruno, I enjoyed your article and concur with your analysis of the situation. My own experience in dealing with “Brussels” has been one of amazement at the sheer waste of money, coupled with the arrogance of some (not all) of the civil servants that I have encountered. I would have thought that jobs for life is not only unacceptable, but inconsistent with the principles of any market economy – especially in consideration of the dire economic situation that the European Union finds itself. Ultimately a civil servant – is exactly that – a servant to the taxpayer and as a taxpayer I have no interest in civil servant in Brussels or indeed anywhere, complaining that he or she is unable to visit aging parents, or because he/she has to suffer the Belgian climate. After all, how many immigrants throughout Europe suffer far worse “hardships”? What I would like to know – as a taxpayer, is whether that person – who obviously chose to live in Brussels – is value for money. What your article suggests – in concert with the comments from Maria, is that we are not getting value for money. As debts spiral and unemployment balloons, the European institutions must lead by example, not exemption.
#21 by Slim K on July 3, 2010 - 3:51 pm
Elaine, 99% of those “dealing with Brussels” want money or favours from EU. So likely did you.
Maybe you did not get it, maybe because you do not understand that nobody is your “servant”. Civil service serves the country or the EU, not you personally.
Probably everyone wants easy money. So why is everyone not working in Brussels? 2 versions: either the money is not easy, or people do not have the talent to get through the competition.
Either way, eurocrats wouldd appear to be paid fairly (except for people supported politically by MEMBER STATES – Commissioners, Directors and such)
#22 by Elaine on July 4, 2010 - 11:03 am
Dear Slim, No actually I did not want money or favours from the EU, and to be honest, your insinuation is really unnecessary and unfair.
I worked for an NGO. I was asked to falsify documents to deceive the EU Commission’s auditors, I refused, complained – nobody was interested, so I left. I did not accept the accountant’s view that “everybody does it”.
It seems to me that you do not “get it”. A civil servant serves the country – i.e. the tax payers and as tax payer, I am entitled to voice my opinion and concerns. As an Economist, I am entitled to express the view that each public servant must give value for money. That is my position.
But that’s not the point. The point is that the national civil services in, for example, the UK are being slashed, people are losing their jobs or being told to take pay cuts, while within the European Institutions nothing is changing. Whether eurocrats are fairly paid or not, is completely irrelevant.
No job should be seen to be “safe” while the economic crisis continues. As previously mentioned, the European Institutions must lead by example. As Bruno and Maria have both pointed out, there are serious problems which need to be aired.
#23 by André Nonyme on July 27, 2010 - 12:20 am
Sir,
your populist presentation is I am afraid not supported by representative evidence. Please find in attachment my pay slip for your proper information.
I am 42 years old, I hold a PhD and have 11 years of professional experience. I joined as an AD administrator in the Commission in 2006 and I now earn less than 4000 € /months. There is no fringe benefits such as company cars, phones or bonuses of any kind in the Commission. Is this salary scandalously high ?
I would suggest you to compare this remuneration with similar profiles in international organisations such as NATO, CERN, European Patent Office, ESA, European Investment Bank, European Bank for reconstruction and Development (based in London). Please also compare with the salaries of British officials posted outside the UK. I know that the salaries are much more attractive in these institution with a profile similar to mine . So why do you choose to focus on the Commission staff ?
Do you know that the staff in the European Parliament earns more than the Commission staff and does not work on Friday’s PM ? So why do you choose to focus on the Commission’s staff.
The reality is that the Commission has now difficulties to recruit candidates from Nothern Europe in particular in the sectors of Trade and Competition policies. This is to a great extent due to the reform of the status of the EU civil servant implemented in 2004 and the reduction of salaries for all newcomers. I wish you would have the honesty to report these facts.
A.N.
#24 by Elaine on July 29, 2010 - 8:31 pm
Dear A.N. I am 59 years old, I have a PhD and I would dearly love to earn 4000 Euros a month.
Your question: Is this salary scandalously high ?
Yes.
The fact that the EU Parliament staff earn more and have Friday afternoons off should also be up for discussion.
Believe me 48K a year for a civil servant is a lot of money. If you add the fact that you can’t be sacked, you might understand the concerns.
Just for curiousity – could you also tell us your pension plan?
#25 by Michael on July 29, 2010 - 8:31 pm
It is a populist presentation, indeed. If I look at the recent scandals about UK ministers and parliamentarians having the taxpayer fund second homes etc., I wonder how much these people and their staff earn.
If you are interested in reality and not in confirming your own prejudices, check out this study:
http://u4unity.eu/document/study_remuneration.pdf
It should be possible for journalists to find this sort of document, if I manage to google it within a couple of minutes.
#26 by André Nonyme on July 29, 2010 - 10:02 pm
@Elaine
Dear Eliane,
Maybe yes, maybe no: personally I believe that a solid academic experience, combined with a solid professional one, ability to work in 4 languages and in a multicultural environement, under pressure, deserves at least 4000 euros/ month for 12 months.
Would you move to Brussels under these conditions? If yes, then visit the relevant webside and apply to one of the open competitions: they have no age limit and apply equal opportunities policy.
Alternative option: apply to the UK foreign office and be expatriated, you will benefit from better pay and benefit than the average EU official expatriate.
Regards,
André
#27 by Johnny on October 9, 2010 - 11:57 am
Patrick (*9), you contradict yourself. Firstly you say that entry level UK civil service positions are more highly salaried than the equivalent EU positions, and then you say that only those who can’t get a better job work in UK government. It doesn’t make any sense and your argument collapses in a heap.
#28 by RCS on October 11, 2010 - 5:13 pm
In my view, the Eurocrats are paid for fulfilling their goals in creating a better europe.
The fact that the EU has yet to produce a policy that enhances the wealth of Europe and ties everyone in up in knots with increasingly severe and badly drafted regulation suggests that they have become a liability to the economy of europe.
If the number of eurocrats were cut by 50% and recruitment was taken from people who had worked in the real world, the EU might produce rather better administration.
#29 by distill on December 15, 2010 - 11:28 pm
I don’t think the eurocrats’ salaries should be cut (disclaimer : I am NOT one myself). That is because, at least for those institutions that select their personnel using EPSO, (for instance the Commission but not the EIB) the selection is made on MERIT, based on objective criteria (to which one can object but the important thing is that they exist and are applied equally to all comers) and rigorous selection procedures (disclaimer : I am competing in one). You might think the tests are not very well suited to select people for the described jobs, but at least they do select based on intellectual ability (not whom you know or to whom you’ve been born). As such, these selection procedures represent a powerful social conduit for able people from disfavored backgrounds. If money was saved through cuts in the EU staff salaries, this money would go elsewhere and chances are higher that it would end up in the pockets of a well connected, well heeled person, perpetuating privilege. As André Nonyme tells Elaine, if she makes less than 48K, then the solution is not to cut the salaries of those making more than her, but rather the other way around : she should stand the selection exams and if she is really worth her PhD, then she’ll get a better pay from the EU
#30 by Francis on February 26, 2011 - 8:11 am
Disclaimer: I was a EU commission civil servant
Well, there is also the opposite story: I always was a strong proponent of European Unification having become necessary for European Peace and Freedom after the Habsburg Empire was dismantled. So aside of my regular job, I sat the exams of the “concours”, succeeded and was offered a job as an official taking my previous experience into account. I took it even though it meant a 25% cut in annual net pay compared to my non government job before, but I thought I needed to live up to my convictions. After some 10 years, I had to leave due to the “Kinnock” reforms which drastically worsened the lifetime income perspectives. In the now 6 years I am back in the non-government industry I have made about as much already as I would have made to retirement age in the new salary scheme of the Commission. So at least there are some type of staff the Commission cannot keep any more. And clearly, lowering the intellectual and work capacity of selected Commission staff is deadly for the European project. Given the origin of the “reformer”, I unfortunately believe this was done on purpose. Lowering the overall standard also makes it easier to select people based on gender, sexual orientation and immigrant origin without a noticeable drop in quality….