EU diplomats to spend more on salaries, less on security - Main contents

BRUSSELS - The EU diplomatic service is budgeting to pay €15 million extra in wages next year, but to cut €10 million on security.

Its draft 2014 budget - circulated internally on 3 April and seen by EUobserver - says it is "fully aware of the severe economic and financial constraints" in Europe and voices concern about "value for money for the European taxpayer."

It calls for overall spending of €530 million - €21 million, or 4.1 percent more than this year.

One one hand, it aims to make €5.7 million of cuts to salaries: by axing 17 junior posts; by downgrading 14 of its highest-paid posts to more junior ones; by slashing wage adjustments for local costs in 13 foreign embassies; and by reducing rest leave for embassy staff, among other measures.

But on the other hand, it is setting aside an extra €15.2 million for what it calls "mandatory increases in the remunerations of statutory staff."

It also plans to create 30 new mid-level officials.

And it aims to pay €4.5 million extra for bodyguards in at-risk embassies "due to the security situation in an increasing number of countries and inflation in the price of private security services."

Amid its concern for the physical safety of diplomats, some of the deepest cuts are to come in other security areas.

It is to trim €2.5 million - 23 percent - from secure IT networks in its Brussels HQ. It is to cut another €1.5 million from HQ building security, surveillance and "fitting-out and security works."

It also aims to lower "costs for guarding delegation buildings … and security works in delegations" by €5.1 million.

The budget paper notes that "a review of actual threats has allowed for a reduction in the security scheme" in Brussels.

It says the IT cuts will come from "rationalising disparate and competing systems."

It aims to ditch the so-called Solan encrypted network used by EU countries to circulate classified files in Brussels, in favour of its in-house Iolan network. It also plans to spend 50 percent less on CIMS - Classified Information Management Systems with delegations.

Part of the overall increase is because the European External Action Service (EEAS) will have to start paying €12 million a year rent for its HQ building from November 2013.

An EEAS spokesman said another part is money earmarked in case EU institutions lose ongoing court cases against trade unions on previous salary disputes.

He declined to comment on the wisdom of the security cuts.

Whatever the details, the overall hike is unlikely to go down well in austerity-minded EU countries.

For his part, Richard Ashworth i, a British MEP from the ruling Conservative Party who sits on the European Parliament's budget committee, told this website: "At a time when national governments are looking for savings across the board, the public is entitled to expect savings in the EU institutions as well."

On the "mandatory" salary hikes, he added: "Try telling the man in the street: 'Sorry 'guvnor, but our hands are tied on this'."

The European Commission is yet to say how much it wants to keep itself going next year.

The European Parliament is seeking an EEAS-type hike of 3.6 percent.

But the EU Council, the member states' secretariat in Brussels, is to make them both look bad by asking for just 1.2 percent more - the current rate of inflation.

"I wonder how they will explain why their costs for officials are so much higher than ours … It seems implausible," a Council source said.

The EEAS budget paper throws light on one reason why it costs what it does.

Out of its 950 officials, 552 - or 58 percent - are on the AD12 to AD16 pay-grade or higher, commanding basic monthly wages of €10,300 to €18,400.

The ratio of top-earners in the commission is 38 percent.