European civil service: concept and prospects
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- See Doc. 6579, report of the Committee on the Budget and the Intergovernmental Work Programme, Rapporteur : Mr Speed. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 11 March 1992.
- Thesaurus
1. The Assembly has always displayed considerable interest in matters concerning the status of Council of Europe staff.
2. The most recent texts of note include :
2.3 Recommendation 1102 (1989) on the conclusions of the Colloquy on relations between administrations and their staff (national civil services and international civil service) (Trieste, 15-16 November 1988).
3. The reply by the Committee of Ministers to
Recommendation 944 (1982), delayed until 1991, is quite unsatisfactory in that it reduces the right of negotiation as defined in the Social Charter to a plain right of consultation.
4. In its reply to
Recommendation 1000 (1984), the Committee of Ministers states that there might be grounds for seeking a progressive approximation of the ‘‘employment conditions of staff in the European Communities and the Council of Europe'' ; it is regrettable that no progress in this direction has been recorded to date.
5. The Committee of Ministers has not yet replied to
Recommendation 1102 (1989), a text which is truly a cornerstone of the Assembly's work on the subject.
6. The above-mentioned Trieste Colloquy established that the staff regulations of all international civil services, the Council of Europe included but the European Communities excepted, perpetuate an archaic situation by present-day standards and have not kept up with the development of national civil services as they move towards liberalisation and greater conformity with private sector conditions.
7. The advancement of a European civil service essentially consists in an effort to encourage the adoption of definite measures to bring the rights of Council of Europe staff into line with those of civil servants in the member countries.
8. Considering that of all the international organisations, only the European Communities have embodied in their staff regulations the social rights secured to the civil servants of democratic countries, it is understandable that the Assembly should look to the Communities as a model, although there is no question of automatic alignment to their solutions.
9. It is especially urgent that the Council of Europe staff should at long last be granted the right to bargain collectively as set forth in Article 6 of the European Social Charter, one of our Organisation's proudest achievements, and likewise that the rights secured to national civil servants by the International Labour Organisation's Convention No. 151, on labour relations in the public service, should be extended to them.
10. Significant efforts must be made as regards legal protection, career arrangements and inter-institutional mobility for Council of Europe staff.
11. The discrepancy between Council of Europe and Community staff salaries must be constantly watched with a view to possible corrective measures.
12. For these reasons, the Assembly instructs its Committee on the Budget and the Intergovernmental Work Programme to persevere in its efforts towards the establishment of a European civil service in keeping with the guidelines and considerations put forward in this order and, as a first priority, the establishment of negotiation rights for Council of Europe staff.
