EU staff pay fight goes to court
Berlaymont
(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission decided Wednesday to take the bloc's 27 nations to court over their refusal to endorse an inflation-busting pay rise for tens of thousands of EU civil servants.
Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso won unanimous agreement at a meeting of his 27 commissioners to take the case to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen told journalists.
Brussels "has indeed confirmed its decision to take action before the court," Hansen said. "Now it's for the court" to decide.
EU nations embarked on a collision course with the bloc's executive when they decided last month to slash in half a 3.7 percent salary increase drawn up under a formula previously agreed by national leaders.
The dispute has proved an embarrassment at a time when European leaders are trying to re-brand the bloc on the world stage with new public faces under its reforming Lisbon Treaty.
Technically, member states which fund the bloc's budget now find themselves in the absurd position of financing legal action against themselves.
The commission said it had asked for a speedy decision by judges who would themselves benefit from a higher pay award.
The head of the Centre of European Law at Kings College, London, said the judges could be "trusted" to decide purely on legal grounds.
"A legal dispute of this kind, if submitted to the court, has to be resolved by the court, since there is no other means available," said Francis Jacobs, formerly advocate general at the European Court of Justice.
"The member states could not suggest any alternative... The court therefore has to decide the case in accordance with the law, and must be trusted to disregard any personal interest of its members."
A 1973 court judgment in a near-identical case backed the commission's stance.
Some 50,000 EU employees and contract staff -- at the commission, parliament, council and court -- have this year received a 1.85 percent rise, despite having taken strike and other industrial action backed by unions.
Union representative Tom Morgan said he wants European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek to give a "tangible and public" commitment this week to co-sign the action.
Morgan added that a renewed protest would be organised outside a parliamentary confirmation hearing on Monday for the EU's new foreign supremo and deputy commission chief Catherine Ashton.
Other union figures, though, thought more industrial action was now unlikely.
Some member states have cut civil servants' salaries domestically in a bid to reduce swelling national deficits, sometimes under orders from Brussels, where the commission also acts as budgetary watchdog.
The commission argues that the 3.7 percent figure was calculated through a legally-binding mechanism, averaging pay rises in Brussels and eight EU countries.
Twenty EU nations supported the decision to halve the award. Seven others abstained but all face the same court complaint, which targets the collective entity for the 27, the European Council.
Basic gross monthly salaries for EU commission staff range from 2,550 euros (3,800 dollars) for a secretary to around 17,700 euros for a department head.
The 27 commissioners themselves get even more, plus housing and other perks.
New EU president, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, earns more than US President Barack Obama.