BETA

21 Amendments of Bart STAES related to 2011/0455(COD)

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 2

(2) Consequently, it is necessary to provide a framework for the recruitment of high calibre staff in terms of productivity and integrity, drawn on the widest possible geographical basis from among citizens and residents of the Member States, and to enable such staff to carry out their duties as effectively and efficiently as possible.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 6

(6) The potential advantages for officials and other servants of the European Union of the application of the method should be balanced by the continuation of the system of special levy, to be renamed as ‘solidarity levy’. While the rate of the special levy in force during the period from 2004 to 2012 increased gradually over time and averaged at 4.23 %, it seems appropriate in the present circumstances to increase the solidarity levy at the uniform rate of 6%, so as to take account of a difficult economic context and its ramifications for public finances throughout the European Union. Such a solidarity levy should apply to all officials and other servants of the European Union for the same period and conditions as the ‘method’ itself.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 18

(18) Some staff members must frequently go on mission to the other principal places of work of their institution. These situations are at present not adequately taken into account in the rules on missions. These rules should therefore be adapted, in order to allow in such cases the reimbursement of a~~ccommodation costs on the basis of a flat-rate sum~~ flat-rate sum based on the average local accommodation costs.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 20

(20) Transitional arrangements should be provided to enable the new rules and measures to be applied gradually, whilst respecting the acquired rights and legitimate expectations of the staff employed before the entry into force of th~~ese~~is amend~~ments to th~~ed Staff Regulations.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 21

(21) In the interest of simplification and of a consistent staff policy, the rules adopted by the Commission to implement the Staff Regulations should apply by analogy to the agencies. However, in order to ensure that the specific situation of agencies may, if necessary, be taken into account, agencies should be entitled to request the Commission's authorisation to adopt implementing rules which derogate from those adopted by the Commission~~, or not to apply the Commission's rules at all~~.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 22

(22) A register of all of the rules adopted to give effect to the Staff Regulations, including the authorised derogations, should be set up and administered within the Court of Justice of the European Union. This register, which can be consulted by all institutions and agencies, will allow for transparency and promote a cohesive application of the Staff Regulations.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Recital 26

(26) The Commission, when preparing and drawing-up delegated acts, ~~should~~must ensure a simultaneous, timely and appropriate transmission of relevant documents to the European Parliament and Council,

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 2 (a)

1. The posts covered by the Staff Regulations shall be classified, according to the nature and importance of the duties to which they relate, in an administrators' function group (hereinafter “AD”), an assistants' function group (hereinafter “AST”) and a secretariesal and clerks' function group (hereinafter “AST/SC”).

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Martin EHRENHAUSER, Bart STAES, Monica MACOVEI, Amelia ANDERSDOTTER

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 6 a (new)

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 22a

6a. Article 22a shall be replaced by the following: 1. Any official who, in the course of or in connection with the performance of his duties, becomes aware of or honestly believes in the existence of breaches of law, non-compliance of other officials with obligations of fundamental ethical principles, waste and/or risks detrimental to the interests of the European Union has the right to inform and to provide supporting information to either his immediate superior or his Director General, or the persons in equivalent positions, or the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) directly, if the matter concerns the competences of OLAF. Each institution must also provide a communication channel which allows an anonymous bidirectional communication of messages according to this article. 2. The institution assures that each official who communicates according to paragraph 1 (whistleblower) receives prompt confirmation of reception and within four weeks is informed about approximate duration needed for analyzing his message, which should not exceed six months. If this duration is exceeded, the whistleblower shall be informed about the reasons for this extended duration and the estimated total duration. The same applies for every consecutive period of three months. 3. If preliminary analysis gives reasons that the matter involves areas within the competences of OLAF, the case is transferred to OLAF. The whistleblower shall be informed promptly about that transfer. In relation to the whistleblower and the treatment of whistleblowing OLAF has the same obligations as a primary recipient and his institution. 4. Each institution assures that the identity of the whistleblower is treated as confidentially as possible. The institution and/or OLAF is also responsible for informing the whistleblower immediately of any breaches or risks to anonymity and confidentiality. 5. Each institution assures that each whistleblowing message is analyzed, analyses are impartial, adequate, prompt, properly documented, done by competent bodies and cannot be influenced by people accused or suspected by the whistleblower. The whistleblower has a right to be properly informed and heard before an analysis is finished. He is also informed about the final outcome and has the right to access the related documents. 6. The procedural, privacy and data protection rights of anybody involved as well as the secrecy needs of the institutions are respected throughout the treatment of the whistleblowing cases. 7. An official shall not suffer any prejudicial effects of his whistleblowing or its preparation on the part of the institution and shall be protected by the institution against any such effects that do or could arise from other officials or third parties. If the whistleblower suffers negative effects and a relation to his whistleblowing cannot be excluded, it is for the institution to prove that such a relation did not exist. 8. Undue interference into a whistleblowing process by an official (e.g. manipulation of an analysis or any detriment of a whistleblower) shall make him liable to a disciplinary action. Officials who misuse the whistleblowing process shall also be liable to a disciplinary action if it can be shown that the official had knowingly raised a false concern or knowingly provided false information. 9. The Institutions shall establish internal support to provide independent confidential counselling to potential whistleblowers. The whistleblowing policy shall be communicated in a transparent and constructive manner. Mechanisms shall be established to communicate successful measures in concrete cases such as detection of risks, avoidance of wrongdoing, sanctioning of wrongdoers, avoidance of retaliation and sanctioning of malicious whistleblowing to the staff in an anonymous way. 10. The Institutions shall monitor and regularly evaluate the application of these provisions and undertake proactive measures, provide risk awareness and whistleblowing training to support best usage of these provisions. A coordinated registration, tracking and tracing system for disclosures shall be established without prejudice to paragraph 6 of this article. 11. This article applies also in any case in which an official uses his rights under article 21a or where an official has a duty to report about issues mentioned in paragraph 1.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Martin EHRENHAUSER, Bart STAES, Monica MACOVEI, Amelia ANDERSDOTTER

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 6b (new)

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 22b

6b. Article 22b shall be replaced by the following: 1. A whistleblower who honestly believes that his rights under Article 22a were not respected or who honestly believes in the existence of breaches of law by officials in grade AD 14 or above and/or by Members of his Institution or OLAF is entitled to inform and provide supporting information to the President of the Commission or of the Court of Auditors (if the areas of the competences of the Court of Auditors are concerned) or of the Council or of the European Parliament or to the European Ombudsman. 2. A whistleblower who honestly believes that his rights under article 22b paragraph 1 and 3 were not respected is entitled to inform and provide supporting information about suspected wrongdoing detrimental to the interest of the European Union or suspected criminal behaviour of the officials and/or Members of its institution to any member of the European Parliament and the Court of (if the areas of the competences of the Court of Auditors are concerned). 3. The rights and obligations of article 22a respectively apply to whistleblowers and recipients under article 22b. A recipient under article 22b has the right to question a previously involved recipient and/or institution about his treatment of the whistleblowing and shall be provided with the necessary information for his analysis. 4. If EU legislation entrusts other bodies - outside the EU institutions - with the necessary competences to confidentially assess matters (within EU-Institutions) that could be subject of disclosures by EU-officials, officials may also address them under the conditions mentioned in this article. 5. The recipients mentioned in paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 also have the right to inform the public if they deem that this is necessary. 6. If a whistleblower is undergoing disciplinary or other procedures for not respecting the recipient-limitations of art. 22a/b and/or e.g. by providing information to the media and public any measure taken against him must take into account if the information provided was true or the whistleblower believed it to be true. The public interests in the issue at stake must also be taken into account.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 8

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 27 - paragraph 1

Recruitment shall be directed to securing for the institution the services of officials of the highest standard of ability, efficiency and integrity, recruited on the broadest possible geographical basis from ~~among~~ nationals or legal residents of Member States of the European Union. No posts shall be directly or indirectly reserved for nationals or residents of any specific Member State.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 8

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 27 – paragraph 2

The principle of the equality of Union's citizens shall allow each institution to adopt corrective measures following the observation of a long lasting and significant imbalance between national~~ities~~s, residents of the different Member-States or gender among officials which is not justified by objective criteria. These corrective measures shall never result in recruitment criteria other than those based on merit. Before such corrective measures are adopted, the appointing authority of the institution concerned shall adopt general provisions for giving effect to this paragraph in accordance with Article 110.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 10

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 31 - paragraph 2 - first sentence

Without prejudice to Article 29(2), officials shall be recruited only at grades SC 1 to SC 3, AST 1 to AST 4 or AD 5 to AD 8.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 20

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 52 - point b) - second sentence

However, an official may at his own request aund ~~where~~er the condition that the appointing authority ~~considers it justified in the interest of the service~~issues no justified objections , carry on working until the age of 67, in which case she/he shall be retired automatically on the last day of the month in which he reaches that age.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 21 – point b

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 55 - paragraph 2- first sentence

The normal working week ~~shall range from 40 to 42 hours~~will be 40 hours on average within a reference periods of 3 months , the hours of the working day to be determined by the appointing authority

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 23

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 56 - paragraph 3

As provided in Annex VI, overtime worked by officials in grades SC 1 to SC 6 and grades AST 1 to AST 4 shall entitle them either to compensatory leave or to remuneration where requirements of the service do not allow compensatory leave during ~~the~~a period of 2 months following thate month in which the overtime was worked.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 41

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 110 - paragraph 2 - subparagraph 2

Such implementing rules shall enter into force at the agencies ~~nine~~six months after their entry into force at the Commission or ~~nine~~six months after the date on which the Commission informed the agencies of the adoption of the respective implementing rule, whichever is later. Notwithstanding the foregoing, an agency may also decide that such implementing rules will enter into force at an earlier date.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 41

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 110 - paragraph 2 - subparagraph 3

By way of derogation, an agency may on the basis of a properly motivated request , before the expiry of the ~~nine~~six-month period referred to above and after consulting its Staff Committee, submit to the Commission for its agreement implementing rules which are different from those adopted by the Commission. Under the same conditions, an agency may request the agreement of the Commission for not applying certain of these implementing rules. In the latter case, the Commission may, instead of accepting or rejecting the request, require the agency to submit for its agreement implementing rules which are different from those adopted by the Commission.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 41

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 110 - paragraph 2 - fourth subparagraph

The ~~nine~~six-month period referred to in the previous subparagraphs shall be suspended from the date on which the agency has requested the Commission's agreement until the date on which the Commission has expressed its position.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 42

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Article 110 b(new) - paragraph 4

4. As soon as it adopts a delegated act, the Commission shall notify it simultaneously to the European Parliament and to the Council and inform the Court of Justice.

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT

Proposal for a regulation
Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 43 – point (a)

Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union
Annex 1 - Section A - point 3

3. Function Group AST/SC Secretary/Clerk Carrying out clerical and secretarial tasks, office management and other equivalent tasks requiring a certain degree of autonomy ~~(The number of posts of Parliamentary ushers in the European Parliament shall not exceed 85.)~~delete

2012/03/06
Committee: CONT